 Thank you all very much for coming to today's digital globalization event We've got an arena format which is going to be a special challenge But my hope is that we will all really be able to talk as a group That's the potential of having the arena and so we're going to start here by having My ask each person each of our guests a question and then I'm gonna go out and around in the audience So those of you who are sitting behind me don't think I'm gonna completely ignore you for the entire session You will have chances as well to ask questions, but with that I'm gonna briefly turn my back to you. So just a moment So today we have four guests We have Richard Baldwin. He is the author as you know of the Globotics upheaval a popular new book looking at how The digital globalization is beginning to change Lives all over the world not just in affluent countries, but also in less affluent countries as well We have Ian waitman who is from IHS market. It's a remarkable source of data And really the leader in many broad areas of consulting he's seeing how this is working out in terms of some of the numbers of the The products and some of the changes in the economies Simon Galpin is here from Bahrain An example of an affluent country and how that is adapting to the gig economy and then finally We have Marisa Deliz Ruiz who is here from Guatemala City She is with Sheva, which is a sustainable development NGO that is now in the process of expanding out of Guatemala To seven other Latin American countries so as to provide mobile services in those places as well Richard since your book is part of the inspiration for this panel and really gives us an overall theme Why don't I start with you in your book? You warn of an international talent tsunami that is going to sweep away Stable middle-class jobs across the industrialized world and affect them elsewhere as well. Should we be gloomy or what is the broader outlook? Well, so the basic idea is I think many people are talking about Artificial intelligence and how it will disrupt the future of work and they've forgotten that the same technologies Will affect the same service sector jobs at the same pace So in some sense that's robotics globalization and robotics will affect the future of work now Basically the service sector in the advanced countries has been a closed economy. No competition Because it's been difficult to provide services when you sit in one country in another but digital technology is changing that reality and that will bring people in offices in rich countries in direct wage Competition with workers from all around the world and one aspect of digital technology machine translation Will allow many people who are now excluded from the world service market To speak good enough English and therefore to participate in this telemigration as I call it So I am worried that'll sweep it away, but ultimately I'm an economist. I believe in globalization There'll be pains and gains. This is allowing people to focus on what they're good. So eventually it will be good I think it's just important that we manage the transition correctly Okay, thank you Richard. Why don't I turn to you Ian one of the Questions that I guess everybody asks is is this in fact producing net gains? And Richard I guess is presenting the long-term optimistic scenario But as you look at different economies, so we don't seem to see right now a surge in unemployment broadly across many countries we have us unemployment under 4% we have Chinese unemployment is the premier remark to your yesterday still around 5% to based on the way they do their survey That said as you look at the data is this Causing more dislocation or is it still in sort of a net creator of opportunities as we get this digital globalization? I think it's really a long journey and we've got to look back and what's in the future So if we look backwards It's really been driven thing by the internet initially and mobilization of people on the mobile phone And that caused net change as it created e-commerce and it created disruptive technologies But not in a way that were disruptive to jobs if we look into the future That's where we start seeing things change more radically in certain ways So if you look at the digital transformation, this includes things like artificial intelligence including the Internet of Things lots of data And that's where you really start having a big change in the way that economies will operate So for example, you will have a manufacturing sectors that will be largely be replaced by robotics by artificial intelligence And you have some of the highest skilled jobs that may be an hour done by Data entry specialists in in certain countries and they could be automated again machine learning Digital scraping Make some of those jobs become redundant And so we have to evolve what we're doing as we do that very carefully to make sure that we don't Disenfranchise some of those countries that have now got partway along the journey with us and that we don't lose them along the way So it's different. It's not going to be more of the past. It's going to transform into the future Thank you Ian. Why don't I turn to a couple of country specific examples then and why don't we start? With Guatemala when I think of mobile services in remote areas I'm a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and I was in a Boko Haram area of Nigeria a couple years ago There was a huge blast area where several hundred people had been killed in a series of attacks or say or simultaneous attack and I was struck that You still had almost universal use by then of smartphones and people were able to keep track of for example, millet prices How in Guatemala country? I'll confess. I don't know. Are you seeing? mobile phone access now change the The way that people are doing business and how is that allowing them to connect to world markets and to international economic opportunities? Guatemala in particular has a great case study in the telecom industry ten years ago. They opened The the the telecom market for a lot of big players to come to Guatemala. This really helped for the penetration of smartphones to to grow Amazingly fast. So right now we have double smartphones then population in what the month in particular One of the challenges that we're having is okay. I give you the smartphone But do you know how to use it because more than 50% of them are just using them for calling or texting? so We're seeing this amazing penetration of smartphones and how it's helping people to now grow their businesses not only within their communities, but with With the country and with other countries, especially in gig economy and e-commerce in Latin America, it's it's boosting right now. I would say it's a It's been very beneficial, especially for for uber and big companies that are coming into Latin American countries they've been tropicalizing their and and and really listening to the Latin American countries to see how they can modify their Platforms to really serve our countries. So just to give you an example in in Mexico There has been more than 500,000 jobs created just because of uber more than 40 40% of them were unemployed More than 70% were actually in an informal jobs So this is bringing a lot of jobs in in developing countries in Latin America and and and really helping us To connect with other markets in in the world Just last month. I was in Spain and by coincidence. There was a national strike by taxi drivers worried about services like uber Have you seen protests in? Guatemala from people who are concerned that maybe the Pace of these gig economy arrangements are undermining what might have been more stable jobs for example as taxi drivers Yes, this has happened in every every country when when uber starts in It's funny because for the first time I saw in Guatemala that the taxi drivers, they were blocking the streets So they were they got fined This is the first time that I see that and to be honest now taxi drivers are starting their own apps They're they're starting to organize. They're starting to create even like safety Measurement in their apps because safety. It's a big issue in in our country. So now they're even you know They actually help them to to to become to become better and now I understand the Why the the taxi drivers are? Are Complaining but still this is helping us to really better our competition and and for them to become more productive Thank you Simon How in a much more affluent country like Bahrain, but one that has different many different features from from of Guatemala or even from the United States or The European Union in terms of a large migrant population. How is the digital economy changing that country? Well for us as a government we have to make sure that Bahrain's equipped to benefit from digitalization So we have to put in place both the hard and the soft infrastructure Hard infrastructure of course is making sure we've got the subsea cables the connectivity for Bahrain It's also things like attracting major companies like Amazon web services to put their first major data center for the region in Bahrain But to do that we have to look at the soft infrastructure and by the soft infrastructure That means liberalizing the telecoms market, which was the first thing we did But also things like Making sure that the government can use the cloud that our banks can use the cloud putting in place laws and regulations that Enable access to digitalization all of that as a small economy You can do quite quickly because because you're small You can cherry pick and and copy some of the regulations and laws that others have done And put them in quite fast But the last component to that is it's all very well for the country to benefit But what about the average Bahraini citizen? So making sure that we have the right education system the right programs to make sure that people have the skills So that they can enjoy benefits from that a couple of years ago I was hosting a New York Times panel on Sustainability actually of quite of data centers for example and you do have companies like Google trying to for example Provide the renewable energy for data centers or putting them in places like Iceland that have both a politically stable environment But also geothermal energy what has Bahrain done in terms of sustainability is this natural gas that otherwise might have been flared in which case there's not a real carbon consequence is it more gas dependent as opposed to oil dependent for the fuel system how How do you manage? Doing data centers which tend for which a big issue is always how do you air condition them because they need to be kept Cold in a hot place like Bahrain. Well, the technology is advancing So it's it's it's true now the data centers don't need quite as much energy as they did even two or three years ago But obviously we need to take advantage of the one natural resource that we have and that's the Sun and so using solar power to power up These the data centers that are being built is very important To us we do have access to cheap gas But it's important we use renewable energy wherever possible for these these data centers. Okay. Thank you Okay, with that our experience is that our guests often have the best questions And you probably have much better questions than I do and just to be fair here I'm gonna stop turning my back on the poor people behind me and give them the first chance So do any of you have a question for one of our guests? Yes, please Hi Ali from Pakistan While we've seen technologies bringing down barriers and it's probably called a great equalizer What we're also seeing our countries that are resource rich Their ability to capitalize on Digitalization is much higher than countries that are not resource rich So I guess a question to the panel is that while we saying technology is the great equalizer Is it creating a different kind of discrimination where countries that are well off today Will climb much higher on the digital Picking order and the countries that are lower will continue to strive At that lower level Thank you Who would like to to take that one first Richard? I'll throw it to you. Sure. So this is basically the digital divide Question and what I'd like to do is recast the question. So as a way of not answering your question. Is that okay? that Basically in a mindset where there's good industries and bad industries some development like digital technology Can put some countries in the good camp and some in the bad camp? I don't think digital technology is like that. There are a few things that will end up in California Because California is particularly good at that and they got a head start But those aren't necessarily the best jobs or the only jobs what I view digital Integration of the globalization is allowing emerging markets to exploit their true comparative advantage Which is quality adjusted low cost of labor? They're excellent Talent talented people who now cannot sell to the world market who will be able to sell to the world market Now some of the platforms may never go to Pakistan But Pakistani Engineers and web developers are making a very good living selling Their skills all over the world because of digital. So I don't think this is going to be a digital divide I think it's going to lead to a convergence actually overall an income, but then I'm an optimist Okay with that I'm going to take it around here to the other side one point standing back there in the corner I could see our poor interpreters Struggling to keep up for the simultaneous translation and so and I would count me in this as well We should try to speak a little more slowly. Let's go around over here Thank you. Hi, I'm Anushka from Sri Lanka Over the last couple of days in sessions like this as well as others around the re-skilling imperative or What does the four four are mean for jobs? We've heard comments from most most panelists often in passing that Both the optimist and the and the pessimist in passing saying as long as we manage the transition Things would be okay if we manage the transition or it won't be as bad if we manage the transition So I'd like to pose a question to maybe Richard Simon and Marisa. Well, what is the one thing that you what would manage in the transition? Well, look like for you. What is that one thing that countries can do or what would that look like? So that we can say yes, we manage the transition better because we did X Y Z Marisa, so one of the challenges that I always Talk with my with my colleagues and people in Guatemala and this happens in a lot of Latin American countries Is that we're still thinking about selling bananas and coffee like this has to this has to stop Like why don't we sell a banana cream that it's going to help you look younger in Asia, right? We really need to to to be able to be more creative with what we're doing and especially In our legal frames are still very old and they're just protecting this agricultural business So we really need to be more innovative in that and in Latin American particular What we what we really need to keep up is with that with the with the payments where we're still very We still need a lot of work to be able to do online transactions and to accept local cards So I would say those are like two challenges that I really think We need to in order to keep up with the transition Guatemala has quite a few migrant workers in other countries Do they still overwhelmingly have to rely on traditional sometimes high-cost money transfers or is there any? Really online Reliable secure method that's become popular among Guatemala overseas residents for remittances. So for remittances in in particular Guatemala is one of the actually our GDP. I think 30% depends on remittances from the US. So it's very very high That's why I really believe that mobile technology e-commerce and gig economies can can really help people not to to want to move Outside Guatemala and you know want to go to the US and be able to receive this You know this new opportunity this new jobs so Going back to to your question. There has been some platforms like Zoom for example where people are able to receive their money in their phones But we're still not able to do any payments We don't have any any any payment solutions Online so for example, I cannot use PayPal to send or receive any any money because there's no way I can get the cash out Has Ali Baba's we we chat pay? Moved it all into Guatemala or you haven't seen no it's going strong into Mexico next year Amazon is going strong in Brazil and we hope we start as the Working as a homogeneous region especially in Central America where countries are much smaller. So we so we can attract other players to come Okay, thank you. Let's get another question. Um, we had here. We'll get one over here. We'll try to alternate This question is for both of you and it's what have been the major challenges in the democratization of Of the cell phones and technology in general because I I Mean it's easy about rain To do all these changes, but there are other countries like for example in Mexico It has been very hard to implement public policy to democratize these technologies So I would like to know your experience is both of you I mean buck rain has very high smartphone penetration rates a hundred percent basically So that's not too much of an issue But we benefited a lot from liberalizing the telecom sector. So introducing competition having four or five major Telephone companies competing even in a small place like buck rain has really brought down costs and Made buck rain very competitive when it comes to to to mobile phone and other telecoms services so Not too much of a challenge for that, but maybe there's a different experience in Guatemala It's actually one of the case studies. We we use how they liberalize the the mobile The telecom industry so we had we have a lot of big competitors that that came to to help us Increment the penetration of the of the smartphones Guatemala is one of the of the countries in the world with the lowest cost in data And even the the the cell phone per se So at least I can speak from the Guatemala perspective that has been that Liberizing the telecom industry was one of the of the great moves if that helped us to With your we're also fortunate that we have Huawei in buck rain is there as they happen And they are rolling out 5g very very quickly. So being small It means that you know major telecoms companies can introduce technology quite quickly Providing the government's part of it has a sort of team approach to supporting them Ian, I know that the IHS market follows telecom in particular what What regions are you seeing that are still? lagging is it mostly a direct correlation with GDP per capita in terms of Smart to clone deployment and so forth or are there others or whether it's regional variables or is it heavily correlated with whether or not they've Deregulate for example the telecom sector with multiple mobile phone providers what what what kind of correlations do you see between the the digitalization and the And the sort of other variables that might be predictive of it. All right well In some ways it's helped some countries because they were able to leapfrog Landline telephony and jump straight to the cell phone and that actually gave them some impetus where they didn't have it before They don't have to roll out a big infrastructure in ways. You did in the past That said there are enablers. So I really feel there's sort of three tiers to this problem There's there's there's the western side where they've fully developed economies There's a middle tier where I think there's been a lot of work done to get those economies to where they need to be to be On a level playing field with with the first tier And that is coming slowly, but there is a third tier and the one we probably should focus on more Where they're somewhat disenfranchised they they don't have full access to the internet They don't have mobile phone usage that is ubiquitous across the country And they don't have the ability to actually understand how to access it And I think that's where we need to focus because I think the middle tier economies increasingly they're getting it and Innovation from within is also working with innovation that's coming from the outside to help them develop But I think that we don't we just got to be careful. We don't disenfranchise a huge part of the world's population by not addressing that Thank you with that. We've got a question over here, and then I'm gonna come over there. Here we go Hi, my name is Emmanuel. This question is basically to Galpin anyway Over the last couple of years Banks insurance companies have struggled with infrastructure development It basically shifts the focus from their business to focusing on building some infrastructure that will support their business because of the introduction of technology I think recently cloud computing cloud data centers Exponential technologies has made that whole process much more easier, but then there are still issues of Data protection for instance In Africa, we still don't have a lot of Lookout data centers and so my question is in in borrowing you did mention something like that What are the regulations and policies and is this something that could be taken on a global scale to include countries like Africa? It's a good question I mean we've just introduced the data protection law in back rain It was incorporated in our our previous sort of company law before but now we've got a bespoke data protection law And we think that's important and it's the only country in in the GCC that has this this type of law But we're not we're not stopping there one of the things that we think is a is a major opportunity is hosting other countries data and to do that we want to try and introduce Legislation that will allow data embassies Meaning that you know a company from Saudi Arabia can put their data in a data center in Bahrain And that data center can be subject to Saudi law rather than Bahraini law So that's one thing that the we think will help But when we talk about financial services Really the big challenge is the fact that right across our region. There is a vast majority of people that are unbanked So really opening up the financial services industry allowing fintech companies to come in and compete with banks It's going to be a very important component to that And linked to that of course is the E know your customer regulations So getting EKYC into Bahrain and actually copying what some other countries have done whether it's Kenya whether it's India Replicating the best of their regulations in somewhere like Bahrain is could really open up the market very very quickly One of the things I like about this audience is that we're getting so many voices from so many different parts of the world from Pakistan to Ghana I Encourage each of you also as you ask your question to mention your country And if there's a just a short anecdote that is the basis of your question From your experience in your country, then please do feel free to include it Let me go over here now. We haven't had anybody over here yet Thank you My name is Danny. I'm from Turkey I run a HR tech startup we are doing training and development stuff with online coaching My anecdote actually it's about that we are Rewriting all of our product with AI and my question is about Linguistics and globalization because when we started I'm not so optimistic about the translation part because We started with a lot of Turkish language data more than 50,000 lines of Turkish language data helps us to build adaptive products Which is a technological and advancement for our country, but when I try to Implemented in English to open up to broader markets I realized that All the time that I spent to collect all the data in Turkish There are already enough data available in the world In English that I can use and I realized some other potential competitors Doing not the similar stuff. I can still compete with them, but They have access to vast amount of data with their own language within their own culture. So my question is Yes, technology creates a democratization, but maybe English or you know globally used data-generated languages create another disparity in terms of Different local competitive ideas And I want to hear your take about that So if I could I could do that the the I think what you're getting to and I hadn't really thought about it My new book is basically it's all about data Machine translation is if you have a great big structured data set They can fit it and it will get very good very fast The big advantage was when the UN released millions of sentences that were hand translated among the six UN languages and if you one of those language languages you're doing very well one of which is not Turkish So the basic problem is to get a big data set which translates Turkish into something and until you have that you won't have this So what you're saying is basically there's it may emphasize the dominance of the largest languages because they have the big Data sets and therefore the translations will be better with it. So that's a point I hadn't thought about but you can gather this data. So for example Some of the smartphone companies gather data when you're doing translations and Google translate For example gathers data while you're putting in translations and they learn from it So maybe something in Turkey you've got Turkish government could kind of sponsor that somehow or another to accelerate it But I think it's an interesting point that it could lead to language dominance because of the data problem Interesting you and you looked like you were about to answer that one as well Yeah, it it it can be a problem because artificial intelligence is really just Algorithms active in the big data set and if you've got bias in that data set whatever type of bias it may be gender bias It may be language bias You're not going to get out where you expect to get out and so it's cleaning that data set And so in your particular example, it is that translation of that into a common language It could be a third language could be a machine language doesn't have to be English But you have to have some common language to create balance in that data set before it'll work So I I think bias in data sets is going to be a big problem for AI in the short term, but I think we'll overcome it I'm going to go over here and take a question from one of our standing guests But I realize there's one section of the room I have not yet taken a question from which is you over there whom I was originally facing So I'm going to go to you next think about your questions, please. You had a question back here My name is Rashid Lahmadi. I'm from Dubai electricity and water authority and I'm ex telco So my question in the perspective of the data protection law and the cross-border data privacy laws You've been talking about embracing the data regional data center that people would Use it as a regional hubs so from that perspective What do you think are the right business models that will embrace really such model where people usually you think that the data privacy is being mainly driven from security perspective, but they're for sure our Business oriented out of them as well. Thank you. Who wants to take that one first? Don't try Okay, I mean the fact that we've got major data centers in Buckrain is good But that's not the whole story. We want the users of those data centers to also co-locate with them Then it comes down to the latency and cost whether it's an ad whether it's a real advantage being Located in really close proximity to those data centers, but that's sort of in some ways defeats the whole purpose of the cloud But at the very basic level, it's a great signal the fact that a company like AWS Chose Buckrain against regional competition is a big vote of confidence in Buckrain the fact that they're developing talent in Buckrain in partnership with the universities is also very important, but now of course we want the content We want the games industry. We want e-commerce from China We want a position buck rain on the the digital Belt and Road initiative that China has And we want to get a lot more jobs coming out of that initial investment. Hopefully The challenge though is going to be education Making sure we've got people with the right skills that can really access those new opportunities Okay, and now finally we get our section over here. Does somebody over here have a question for us? Yes back over here. Let me Take the mic over Hi, how are you? My name is Neha. I'm from India. The question I had for you was more about When we're talking about inclusive growth, how do we make sure that our data is not biased in the first place? Which we are then feeding into to build AI on top of that which is then resulting in artificial intelligence, which Also makes our own biases and stereotypes even more magnified and difficult to change in the future So what I mean is there were studies done previously about how the scientists that were feeding in data had a particular bias about how they viewed African-American or how they viewed a woman or how they viewed a particular person in a minority and then the Artificial intelligence also started putting those tags on those particular minority groups What are your suggestions and how do we deal with this problem in the future? Thank you I'll probably take a shot at that one and you're right So if you try and create a machine learning algorithm To identify a cat and all you show it is pictures of black cats When shown a black cat it will always identify it correctly But show it a white cat then it will never know it's a cat and that's about the bias of the data set So you've got to homogenize in some way the data that you put in it You can't rely on one single source because you're going to introduce bias either from the source It's coming from or from personal bias by the person who's creating the algorithm So the only real way to do it in a way that's effective is to homogenize data set and take them from different Constituencies and bring them together and create one data set and again in a common language Is a good way to do that because then you use you lose the language bias that might be intrinsic in it Ian if you If a country has a comprehensive censorship system does that tend to affect? Artificial intelligence results if you're basing it off of that Data set if you're betting it basing it off for language data So yes, whatever you're doing to constrain your data set puts bias into it and I think that wasn't really fully comprehended in the first AI models and That's when you get situations of what you put in is giving an output You didn't expect and and you take that to the extreme even with autonomous driving now You have that situation where you've created as many models as you can think of to make sure that's a safe environment But you've biased it because you see it you haven't put in the situation that arises and then you have a problem with the auto autonomous driving Concept so it's it's about iteration and it's about homogenizing data sets. Okay. Thank you To right next to each other here. Why don't I go with you first? I'm from India my question is these digital technologies have a huge impact on Service industry and manufacturing. What about the agriculture? Agriculture community how it will improve the productivity and yield which will improve their lives Which are close to billion people depending on that and we are all also Getting the help from there. I Just want to give the the the example of the Tao about villages in China and how e-commerce is, you know Helping this agricultural pure poor communities to to to start connecting their agricultural products to to the world to Alibaba and to other platforms, so So I I would say now it's a Now it's a it's a time where the agricultural World can really start using innovation e-commerce and and and other platforms to to start Doing the business in a different way but I'm a buck rain isn't isn't isn't very user-friendly when it comes to agriculture because of our climate but what we are seeing are a lot of Hydroponic farms opening up what you're seeing are companies that are delivering food in a very efficient way So cutting down on some of the wastage that you would get for from food spoiling So even a country like Bahrain, which is incredibly hot can still start to develop a fairly democratic agricultural sector And in a more practical way you can actually use technology to improve yields. I think that's what you're referring to I mean you can go to different ways. So if you if you have a large a large farm, you can use drones They can compare Different fertilization different watering in different parts of it and show where you need to water where you fertilize You can use the concept of the Internet of Things with micro sensors may only cost a few cents each but they're put throughout the land that you're trying to monitor and they will monitor the Nutrient content of the soil so you can fertilize and you can optimize the use of fertilizers Not over using them under using them and making sure you maximize yield So I think there's a huge Change that can happen and it doesn't doesn't just happen in the in the first world that happened throughout anywhere that can do that I'd like to throw in a question here, and then I'm going to take another one over here from the side But and this would be for Richard. We're getting a very sunny view here from almost all the participants of digital globalization but to use the classic example of what what do you do with say a 50 year old radiologist who still wants to work for another 15 years and faces competition to the extent that The MRI images or x-rays can be emailed to a radiologist now in a country where the cost of living is Extremely low and they can do it for the tenth of the price. It's hard to suggest retraining or maybe it's a 40 or 45 year old These are the kinds of stable middle-class jobs that people worry about in the United States There are actually more certification rules now on radiologists, which are making it hard to email those those images, but What let's talk a little bit if we can hear about the dislocation about the people who are Losing their jobs as opposed to getting new opportunities Richard, please sure so in deep down This is just a form of globalization not too different like the ones we've seen before and Globalization creates gains and pains people get a focus on what they're good But it leads other people to be displaced and that's the classic problem What do you do with the people who are displaced and there are a few classic solutions used by governments around the world? The best examples are in northern Europe where governments help retrain they help with income support Whatever is necessary to help them get to a new job But make their hiring and firing flexible as a the Danish model is is the best one but to to That's that's what it should be. I suspect the reaction to your question and that which will be posed very clearly Is what I'd like to call shelter ism and I think Professions in the rich countries will reach for regulation to slow down this competition from abroad And you mentioned one using privacy or professional regulations to slow down the competition Just as they've done with uber so I think we'll see a lot of that kind of shelter ism where they use privacy laws health and environment Regulations to slow down the competition just so that they get a little shelter from the storm So that's what I think it will be very disruptive But we will see a backlash and government should be doing more to help them transition Okay. Thank you Richard. Why don't we take another question over here now? Thank you. Hi. I'm part bringing you all love from Toronto, Canada It's as Canadian as my opening could go My question is going back to data sets. Do you think that there should be limits on how much monopoly? private corporations should be allowed to create from proprietary data sets so for example Facebook and Google at this point The volume of data that they have Smaller players like us that are looking to innovate. There's no way we can compete What are your thoughts on a? analogous model to something like patents where you have a 20, you know We we look at the public interest say we need innovation, but at the same time we curtail the monopoly And we say you have 20 years in the US to commercialize those that innovation as We enter this new fourth industrial revolution. What are your thoughts about having a similar policy regime for for proprietary data sets Ian maybe yeah, I Take the point although the example you gave for example, we we use the the Facebook API to enable us to to get information from that you can legislate I think that it will actually evolve through companies actually understanding the benefit of sharing data sets and having common data sets that people can access and I hope that's the way it goes and it does seem to be going that way already because if you make publicly or Company-wide accessible data sets and put them in one place Everybody can use those data sets and and perform from them The companies themselves would get the advantage that they're not only relying on their own data set They get access to their competitors and other data sets that might be relevant So I think the benefits to everybody are in sharing data sets and I think that's the way it will go You've got to just intermediate of course personal information out of them and make sure it's an identifier But I think I hope we'll go in the direction of data sets that are available to everybody if I can add to that I mean, I think it's important though that regulators do Otherwise you get some companies that share and others don't so I think one example would be financial services I mean the UK's really led in opening up the the banking sector and the APIs for banking We're trying to do that in Buckrain, but you can't let the banks do it You have to actually tell them they have to do it and our central bank is taking a lead in in doing that because once you do That you really open up For a lot of competition from smaller fintech companies that can access and use that data Okay, I'm gonna take a question over here But one thing I did want to mention is that this particular panel seems to have attracted an audience That's about four fifths men and so they're not that many questions yet from the women So I want the question after this one to be from one of the women in the audience Please we want to try to get everybody asking questions. Thank you very much. My name is Matar Don't translate in Spanish, but in Arabic Matar mean rain in Spanish is to kill so My my question about the data data center if you build the data center What is your main service? Is it the co-location or the services and when you are giving a service like sauce or pass? Who's responsible of cyber security and if there is any attack, what will be the consequences? Goodness Cyber security, I mean cyber security is the responsibility of the government of course to a certain extent But it's also the responsibility of the the owners of the data the hosts of the data AWS of course have major major initiatives to Constantly improve their cyber security. We as a government are also looking continuously at making sure that Bahrain is Is safe from from cyber attacks as best we can so it's a it's a very complex issue The main services that we want to have from data centers Well, it's it's it's all the users of that data So of course financial services and being a financial service center is one part of it But we've got to allow the banks to use the cloud to use some of these new data centers We've had to change some of our regulations pushing government departments Not to all have their own little service, but to use the cloud where we're appropriate is another enabling Initiative that we have and it's saving a lot of money for Bahrain, but we want to attract new industries Gaming is very big for example in Saudi Arabia. So if we can attract some of China China's and Korean games Producers and help them to localize the games for for the Gulf that could be a new niche area for Bukhara Is that gaming in the sense of both of of gambling or only Interesting popular in Saudi Arabia, okay Do we have any women since I promised the women in the audience a chance to ask a question here? We had one earlier from Alba over on the other side, but If not, I will go over here now Hi, my name is Anna some from Saudi Arabia. So I understand how big is the gaming industry video gaming industry So, but I think it will be very challenging actually because I know as well There's a lot of data centers being built in Saudi as we are speaking and I think Amazon as well There's negotiation with the Saudi government like how to build it in Saudi And it goes back to the question asked by the colleagues from UAE I guess it's like how you are going to protect the data and As well the connectivity as well because sometimes you will have a different connectivity signals within the the Saudi so the infrastructure is still not Spread out I guess in all over the Saudi But this is a challenge. I think it's you need to consider if you are want to attract businesses My question is is how to protect the data actually Because it's very sensitive sensitive in Saudi and I guess in the GCC region as well well In Saudi you legislate to protect that data what we're saying is you can host your data if we if we can develop this this new legislate this new These new laws in in buck rain that allow for data embassies It means that the data can be protected under Saudi law Not necessarily under buck rain law. We already have data protection legislation Which is similar to the old EU data protection legislation So that we think is a step in the right direction But having this concept of of data embassies is something that we think could be quite important for us in buck rain Over here now, please Hi, I'm Christine from Malaysia. I'm really interested about understanding a bit more about implementation of data embassies I mean there are positives and I guess the delivery of it is something else as well Data is the new all is that what everyone says and and right now with oil and gas and and what's going on around the world? Evolving around oil. I mean what are the challenges then where you have certain groups? monopolizing Data embassies in certain parts of the world And how is that going to change the way we do things? Well, I think it's important to have competition So we've got Amazon web services, but we would love to have some of the big Chinese Data centers that are that are looking very aggressively at the region I think the one country that has begun to introduce this Data embassy concept is Estonia seems to be quite working quite well there in buck rain We're not afraid to copy people that have good ideas and have introduced good legislation So we're what we're watching to see how that works But for a small economy that doesn't have it huge amounts of its own data if you really want to be a hub I think this is a concept that we have to start to to adopt Okay Well another question here one moment I'm just thinking about something pretty now I So policies actually pushes data backup to tapes to some extent I'm just thinking if we are going to rely on cloud data centers having Data embassies in other countries How are we going to control backups? And how are we going to control disaster recovery and in countries where there are Regulations that aligns with ISO especially the 2700 and one Is is there a way around it or are you going to look into the future how to work around that? Well, I guess the backup also has to be included within the data embassy Maybe not in exactly the same location, but under the same framework in the same country. I Think that's the only way we could we could we could we could do that in buck rain Or possibly in different countries or possibly different countries. Yeah, as a very distributed back. That's true Simon is there a country that is marketing itself as A place that does not back up For privacy reasons that is has anybody tried that as a theme Just because people don't necessarily want some things backed up I Mean already there are concerns for example that if somebody said something controversial in China on the internet six years ago, that's still all recorded somewhere and to the extent the The environment might change. They might get in trouble over that There are where Is there anybody who has tried to market that I haven't heard of that But I haven't heard of it. Maybe somebody else has like the Swiss banking of data. Yeah I Could encrypt I mean that's the way that people typically you back up encrypted data that you've encrypted yourself Whoever's backing up your data does not get access to the encryption code. So yeah, it's kept you encryption interesting Thank you Hello, everyone. My name is Faisal. I'm from Saudi Arabia We've seen a lot of digital transformation and rapid Especially when it's away from the eyes of the government and regulations But we're seeing very few transformation when it comes to the physical world Agriculture industrial revolution. It's a bit slow So so from your point of view. Do you think? We've could play a role as a platform to push governments towards legislation and regulations that At least accelerate this change or pray play it. I come from an entrepreneurial Community or or play it Entrepreneurial away from the government eyes. So the government will be pushed later on To do more legislation. I just I want to start with answering your question in In in some countries in Africa and then in America The good thing is that the regulations have not been created. So the technology is actually going faster Which I think it's an advantage for our regions we have a Regulation in what the money in particular that is stopping us from connecting ourselves to e-commerce and it's the legal the online signature We're not able to legalize any document or to have a online signature So that's stopping us to make any transactions accept any contract online Which of course we need the government to support us in order to be able to open You know the country to to all these platforms in the e-commerce So that just it's just an example of you know what a government can help can help out and in other ways that it's That technology it's actually going faster than the regulations And then we're specifically it's it's actually happening I participated in a couple of workshops in the last two days one on AI one on blockchain And what he's taking a very active role in bringing what it does so well bringing together both the commercial communities governments Academia into one conversation to try and to try and advise before all of those regulations get put in place to try And create one that is more global. So yes, it's very actively happening right now Coming back on that last question actually I noticed your mention of encryption How why how many countries? Restrict encryption. I know what I was thinking of somebody in Western China who was quoting from the Quran six years ago may now wish that was encrypted But encryption is not available in China domestically. Is there a growing proportion of the world that does not allow Encryption or is that portion shrinking? I I don't know. I imagine it's probably staying about the same countries that have been more open Continue to be more open You still can't get a code to unlock an Apple phone for example in the US And those countries that have tended to be more restrictive have stayed more restrictive. I haven't seen any dramatic shift either way Okay, we've only got time for a Couple more questions and whom do we have here? We go on the side that I've been neglecting. Let's get a question here Hello, Robert Hodgkinson from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in London. I think underneath a lot of the Later questions has been Challenges to institutions. I just wonder if we're going to get Global digitalization, right? Do we need to be building some new institutions that? That look after a world order and isn't that particularly difficult at a time when actually established Institutions that we've got at a global level or under real threat. How do you how do you see that is? Wefts okay, but it's not a it's not a global institution that actually Establishes common rules and the police's things. So is there a is there a need for? Institution building or shall we wait for it all to go wrong? And then have a crisis which probably you know is the birthplace of IMF and United Nations Well, if I can answer that we'll probably have to wait for the crisis, but there's definitely a need for more regulation So first of all it's astounding. There's no AI governance There's no treaty on AI or whatever. So that's amazing and yet But the other just to just to touch directly on digital globalization of services Taxation will be an enormous issue so for example, I run a website in London and we have some copy editors in Bangkok and The tax as far as I know is not paid anywhere. I'm trusting the freelancers paying taxes locally, but that's me trusting Now if 10% of the workforce goes online, how are you going to tax that? Where should it be taxed those will require? treaties and agreements Very much like the problem we had with where do you tax multinational profits? This will be with services and I think it could easily be a very very large problem very very fast So that's at least one type of governance that we should need another is labor standards For example, most trade treaties now have minimum labor standards about rights to unionize and that sort of thing And this international freelancing is completely the Wild West There's no governance whatsoever and I'm quite sure that as we saw with the sort of backlash against sweatshop labor in Clothing sold in the West will find the same thing about freelancers And so they will become a need to certify that the freelancers are actually being treated to with a minimum degree of Labor rights, so that's those are two that I really think we do need With that actually we're out of time I apologize for that, but I did want to say to everybody Thank you so much for coming. This has been even I think by world economic forum standards and Uncommonly geographically varied of audience and it's been great It's been great to have questions whether it's from Dubai India Pakistan Saudi Arabia Malaysia and so many other places Ghana, so thank you all very much for coming I think we have a lot here to think about in terms of both how specific sectors can be Changed through digital globalization. We've had mentions of financial services In Guatemala and elsewhere We've had not just mentions of service of sectors But also of how individuals are affected such as whether it's taxi drivers whether it's freelancers So with that we have a lot to think about I encourage you all if you want to stay afterwards for a few minutes So introduce yourself to some of your neighbors, please do and thank you all for coming to Tianjin. Thank you