 Hello and welcome to the World Economic Forum Session Accelerating Digital Inclusion in a Post-Covid World. I'm the moderator. My name is Andy Serwer. I'm the Editor-in-Chief of Yahoo Finance. We have a star-studded panel here today that I will introduce in a minute or two. And we also have an exciting initiative that we're introducing through the World Economic Forum. Again, I will talk about that in one minute or two. Just to give you an idea about the structure here today, the first half hour of the session will be a public forum where we'll hear from the panelists and have a discussion on this topic about digital inclusion. And then the second half will be for members on top link at discussion amongst those members. So digital inclusion in a post-Covid world, it's obviously a front and center topic for all of us really, all citizens of the globe. And obviously what's happened during COVID is that this issue of divides has been highlighted, if not exacerbated by many of the factors that we've seen during COVID. And this has certainly been true in terms of what's happened on the digital side of things. Obviously connectivity, networks, and being able to connect with colleagues, friends and family is essential and incredibly critical during this time. And so what it means is if you don't have connection to the network, you're not going to be able to work, you're not going to be able to go to school, you're not going to be able to see your friends and family. And so this divide, which maybe was always a problem is much more of a problem right now. And as we look to move into 2021 and we hope to move beyond COVID, it's time we think for all of us to work on this problem and make sure that we have inclusion, not only when it comes to economic factors, but when it comes to networking and connectivity as well. So with that, I would like to bring in our distinguished panel. And we're, I'm delighted to introduce Hans Vesper, who is the chairman and CEO of Verizon. Verizon is also the parent company of Yahoo, I should point out. We have a minister, Apollo Inga Berry, who is the minister of information communication technologies from Rwanda, and also welcome. And we also have Robert Smith, the founder of the chairman and the CEO of Vista equity partners. So great to see all of you. Before we begin, I'd like to talk just briefly and maybe set up a comment by Hans Vesper, this initiative that I mentioned, that's being introduced this morning. And maybe I should say by the world economic firm is the first global mobilization of public sector and industry leaders to head on square on address this problem of connecting people and helping people participate in the digital economy. So all the people on this panel are board members. And in fact, Hans, you're the chairman of the board. And so you're a busy guy, obviously a lot to do. And so this must be pretty darn important for you to take time to do this. So I wonder if we could start with you and maybe you could just talk a little bit about what the Edison Alliance means. Thank you, Andy. And you're right. This is darn important. I mean, I think we've heard through all the panels at the World Economic Forum the last couple of days that 2012 has been a year like anything else. I mean, it's so different the COVID-19 and it's not going away. We will continue to have this impact on people with the COVID-19 and economy and all of that. So it is a really, really tough time. And it also has changed a lot of things. As you mentioned in the beginning, Andy, everything from working is now remote work, health care is telemedicine, entertainment is live streaming. Everything has basically changed. And what we need to understand that this is not new concepts. I think that we many of us have been talking about digital education, remote learning, telemedicine for years. It's what happened in 2020 was that we leap from at least five to seven years in the digital inclusion in the world or the digital advancement in the world. That is just unheard of because usually it takes a progression when you include it in the digital transformation you're seeing. For the last 10 years, I've actually been talking about mobility broadband and the cloud. It's a 21st century infrastructure because it's efficient, it's scalable and it's sustainable. It has to be the most important platform we have in order to support the mankind on earth and we have seen how important has been the last five to seven years. And putting that in the perspective of the sustainable development goals, all of those goals are underpinned by the mobility broadband and cloud and it has been seen more than ever. So I think that is so important. But we also need to be clear that the work that governments, private sectors, different industries, ICT sectors have done the last nine to 12 months. It's just unheard of pulling these together. Still, it's three over three billion people on this earth that are not online. And of course, here we are now facing the enormous great opportunity at the same time a great risk. The opportunity is obvious. We can now accelerate an inclusive world by using digitally that we have never done before because we have proven that these tools are working. And it doesn't matter where you are born or where you live, you should be able to get it. The risk is of course that we are accelerating the divide in our society by this digital transformation we see right now. And suddenly we actually have more people behind, especially valuable groups and populations on earth. So that's why the importance is more important than ever to create a cross sector public private in this industrial alliances together to see what we're doing to accelerate this. That was the idea behind the Edison Alliance that we were now launching officially, which has a clear target to have measurable targets per year, how we move forward on this acceleration of digital inclusion. The first year we're going to focus on healthcare, education and financial inclusion. All of them are supporting the SDGs as well. And again, it's not the ICT sector. It's not enough. We need all industries. We need the public sector and we need all the industries alliances together to see that we do that. We're not going to replicate what anybody else is doing. We will bring all together and see how we together accelerate this now because it's a unique moment in history that we can use the digital inclusion or the digital technologies in order to bridge the divide and the work we've seen the last seven or eight months have been so crucial. So that's sort of the setup. We have a great board with multi sector and all you see three of the board members here. We are adding Ajay Banga, the executive chairman of MasterCard, and then we also have Shabana Kamini, which is the general manager of the Apollo Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals in India. So we have a very broad group, but we also have a lot of the champions on this call from different sectors. And today is the official launch and we will talk about it more, but this is such a crucial moment and you asked me this has to be important. Yes, this is super important and I feel that this is something that I am prepared to support and help and that's why I'm joining. And I hope that many of my peers will see the same and definitely be part of this. So that's the reason and what we're launching today. Thank you, Hans. And I'm sure there'll be plenty of ways for people on this call and beyond that to participate and get involved in this initiative. So look forward to hearing about that. I want to switch over to Minister Ingebiri and to get your take on the state of play and Rwanda and maybe surrounding regions in terms of the challenges. And then also hear from you from the public policy standpoint of what you think some of the solutions could be. Minister. Thanks, Andy. I think when you look at how many of the countries within the region have, you know, whether during the pandemic, it makes it even more urgent to think about digital inclusion. Had we been able to really, you know, sort of shorten or, you know, closing on the digital divide gap that we're seeing, not just within the region but for many of the developing economies, then most likely we would have been able to weather even much better. But nonetheless, I think what we're also seeing is that for even the progress that we are seeing, even today, a lot of it is thanks to some of the investments that have been made over the past few years in putting in place the right digital inclusion. In place the right digital infrastructure, much as it's not, you know, comprehensive to the, you know, to at least to the scale that we would really want to we still see a huge divide I think when we look at the statistics of 3.6 billion people that are still connected, the majority are on the African continent in the developing countries. And so that in itself goes a long way to show that, you know, as we talk about the digital divide, as we talk about digital inclusion post COVID, while then it becomes more and more urgent for some of our economies. But nonetheless, I think we start to see what has helped us by and large is also what we continue to see the social contract that governments have with their people that have really played a big role in even, you know, having faith in, you know, some of the measures that the government is putting in place investments, the awareness and civilization that is being created. And that of course comes into complement the different investments that have been made. When it comes to digital inclusion or different digital aspects from connectivity to skills and content to say the least. Now to your second part of the question around, you know, when we're talking about policies. I'm glad I think what we're looking at is how do we create the right policy, regulatory and business environment that is conducive and attractive for partnerships going forward. Because big government you will not have enough resources to bridge this divide, you know, to the level and as fast as possible as we would wish to, but also the private sector on their own won't be able to do it so how do we bring in those partnerships how do we think about aggregated demand Hans just talked about healthcare fintech and education going to be, you know, the first initial areas of focus for the Edson Alliance board, but think about the needs that of connectivity that exist in those pockets or in those sectors. And rather than think about siloed implementation of what are their connectivity needs how do we drive digital inclusion in those specific, you know, industries, how do we think about it as aggregated demand which will allow us to really, you know, you know, tap into these economies of scale lower the cost of, of really ensuring that we, you know, we bring everyone on board and make sure that everyone is connected in a meaningful manner. And of course, understanding that connectivity is always going to be the bedrock they enable for all of these things that we're discussing. My final point on policies of course what we need to be thinking about is, you know, from a whole range of infrastructure sharing policies to sort of bring down the cost of investing in the in the last mile connectivity infrastructure we're looking at to thinking about how do we build digital citizens how do we give them the right skills, because they're going they're going to be consumers of what we put out to their disposal. So I'll pause there and we'll come back to some of unpack some of these ideas at a later stage. Indeed, thank you very much minister, great stuff. I want to switch over to Robert Smith and Robert, as someone who has worked in and invested in the ICT sector for a number of decades. I want to get your perspective from the private sector and, you know, the old line is well, you know, certain parts of our economy don't have the ROI requisite for you guys to get involved. And so that's a challenge right for for the private sector how do you overcome that and work with the public sector to actually bridge this divide. Thanks Andy. The way we overcome it is what we are doing with this Edison Alliance which is through leadership and I have to thank Hans and other executives who over the last eight nine 10 months have not only identified what the issues are but are now putting real tangible solutions and infrastructure to solve these problems in the Edison Alliance, I believe is is is likely to be one of the more effective. You know, for decades and years we've all talked about well we need to understand the problem we have studied this we have the analysis we have the data. We have, you have the mechanisms to understand how to solve these problems action in this in this environment involves a couple of things one is broadband connections it's devices it's software, and it's a maintenance ecosystem for that it that infrastructure, which actually is a wonderful local job creator and it points a little bit to what Paula was saying it's how do you actually get this younger generation to be part of this digital economy. And part of them can be you know providers of digital services to small medium businesses education healthcare providers in their own local communities and we have to continue to build the infrastructure to make that happen. So broadband is the key that is the infrastructure dynamic that will make all of the difference, it can eliminate the education deserts the healthcare deserts the business deserts the ability to drive capital and infrastructure enterprise software infrastructure for small medium businesses, and we need available affordable and adoptable college readiness capacity in our communities. You know in the area of education which is one of the areas I'm really focused on you know we've done a study with power school and Mackenzie, and we've looked at every community in America we know we can sort it by you know the African American population that in the broadband penetration we know exactly how many families and students are disconnected in every community. We know exactly what broadband carriers are either backhaul capability there and don't have last mile mile built out. And so now it comes to how do we form the partnership to ensure that we can actually get the connectivity in those communities. But once you create the connectivity for education guess what you now have the ability to deliver telemedicine solutions into those communities and the ability to deliver solutions for small to medium businesses. From an ROI perspective Andy, it's a farce to think that there's not a return on that to give an example in a small business typical software businesses that I live in an enterprise business. It's still a 600% ROI for utilizing enterprise software for productivity in business for a small to medium businesses over 900%. So the real question is how do we create the call it the economic mechanisms such that the device manufacturers of broadband manufacturers that in the businesses can come to some equilibrium that actually enables an expansion of the economy. If you just actually eliminate the wealth gap. In that context for business it's a one and a half trillion dollar increase to the GDP of just the US by doing that for the African American community. It's an economic imperative. It's a moral imperative. And now we have to drive policy imperatives to make that happen and we're I'm encouraged. We just released yesterday through the business roundtable is other groups that corporate call the action that by chairman in the state of Connecticut and at least released to the Biden Harris administration priorities of the agenda and number one that we listed was broadband infrastructure because we know if we get that right. It would enable massive uplift of economic opportunity and frankly job creation and drive us out of what would could be a dire recession coming out of COVID-19 so I'm encouraged and I'm thankful, very thankful for our cons and weft for their leadership in making this forward like to say in the words of Amanda Gorman our brilliant citizen in America if we merge mercy with might might with right and love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright. We have the power to pass you to do this right now and we have the people focused on doing it. Putting our junior poet laureate. That's that's that's outstanding. That's great. And thank you for your insight. Robert and I can I can see the passion there and for dispelling some of those myths as well. That's that's great stuff. I want to draw people's attention to the chat which as we all know now in this COVID world is the game inside the game. I want to participate and communicate with your fellow participants there and Hans I want to go back to you and it actually it sort of speaks to one of the comments that someone made here Mary M Rahim made this point about the digital divide not existing only in high and low income countries and Robert touched on this as well but also within wealthy countries. And so my question is Hans there's so many you know problems slash opportunities here to address how are you guys going to decide where to deploy your resources and your efforts because you could there's a lot of work to be done in the United States. You know wealthiest country on the planet. And you know you could just do all your work there but obviously it's a global issue of course. You're right and then the common is also right with the leapfrog of five or seven years we see the digital divide in any country of the world. So that's why the platform of World Economic Forum forum the multi sector representation the public private the year graphical distribution we have both the board and the champions is of essence because this is not one country and it's all about partnership and doing it right. So I think that's right. So a couple of things I mean when I think about it. I see a three problem challenge here and I think that Robert was into it. First is the accessibility accessibility to broadband. You have to have broadband. Secondly is of course to make it affordable. And finally to have those softwares that is giving telemedicine or if it's a remote learning whatever. So all these three things to go together and then you really understand that that is a work has to come public private because we're touching in different places here. And there are good works done by organization like GSMA the broadband commission that are thinking about this. So we need to bring this all together together with the private and public and see that we are even much more surgical in finding those ways and improving and just alert more and more people on this earth. The importance of it and seeing that we find these financial solutions for capital coming in as Robert talked about. And I know the broadband commission is talking about GSMA is talking about finding new models and the minister Paul Engelberg talked about it as well. So but also seeing that we make usable software and we all like the entertainment that came with the COVID-19 that we can be home and see everything. But here we're talking about remote learning. We're talking about telemedicine applications softwares that can be in the cloud in order to be remotely efficient and sustainable wherever you are. And that has to be scaled up. We have talked about it for years and we knew the solution. Now we finally have the pivot moment where the word actually understand this is working. We can scale it. And we have all the big tech in the workshop to scale. Robert is one of the hundreds of others as well. And this is the time. So I think that again if we don't make it now and see that we make a digital inclusion. I don't know what the better moment we would have or it's a bad moment. I would say it's not a good moment. But what we're creating right now it's a leap of five to seven years for the digital journey. And now we want to want to see that we can actually make this happen for more and more people on this earth. Thank you Hans. Minister Ingebiri I want to go back to you and maybe ask you a little bit about best practices. When it comes to public private partnerships or initiatives that you have in your own country but maybe also around the world and what sort of examples and paradigms are you looking to to address these issues. Thanks Andy. So I'll start by looking at some of the examples that we already have existing. So for one, a couple of years ago as we were thinking about deploying, you know, we already worked with the different communication companies would be able to put in place a fiber optic backbone connecting all the, you know, 30 districts and border points of our country. And we're now thinking about how do we think about deploying a 4G network across the country. And so part of what we did was to, you know, scout around and find a partner who had the skills and resources to partner with government and enter into a partnership, a PPP model that would allow for deployment of this 4G network. And so that's how we've been able to deploy, you know, the 4G network that is covering more than 97% coverage of the entire country. Thanks to the partnership that Rwanda has had with the government of Rwanda has had together with the Korea telecom network. But that's not only the example because when we look at even the kind of last mile, you know, connectivity that we're doing across the country to ensure that, you know, we can reach everyone in an affordable and inclusive manner. A lot of it has been through the partnerships that we're having with the local, you know, telecommunication industry. Now this is just on the connectivity bit. Then we now have to think about with both Robert and Hans, you talk about whether looking at content software devices. And one of the things we've been thinking about is how do we unlock that because it's one thing to have the highway the connectivity infrastructure in place but it's another thing to make sure it's usable. And so when you look at the statistics of coverage versus penetration, there's a big gap. And that gap is because we need to unlock the ability for our citizens to be able to affordably, you know, acquire these devices, be able to use these digital platforms that we're putting in place so we need to be thinking about relevant local content that they can use and, and, and, and, you know, take advantage of these investments that are being made. And so, and also the skills bit and so what we've been doing on the skills bit is how do we partner with local communities. We've, we've put in place a program called the digital ambassadors where we're getting students that are out of university, and we're placing them in different communities. And their role is to go out and train citizens on the basic digital literacy skills because we need them to be equipped. The device manufacturing part is also thinking about who are these manufacturers that can build affordable devices that really will match the purchasing power of our people. Because we won't pretend that any device that you'll find on, you know, any global market, everyone will afford it on the African continent. So how do we start to think about those specific devices that can be used to access these services and information that we're putting on a different platforms. I would say that just in a nutshell to respond to your question I think we look at it holistically we know we can't do it all partnerships is really what has unlocked the progress that we continue to see in most parts of this developing world. That's great and I'm so glad you addressed that issue of affordability Paula because that was something that people were questioning here in the chat and it's obviously a critical critical one. I wonder if you wanted to follow up on that, but I also had another question about just generally speaking chief executive officers of the private sector maybe especially in the United States do they really get this because, you know you hear people talking about diversity and inclusion, and then they're not walking the talk you hear people talking about a digital divide divide and I'm wondering, are people walking the talk here as well so probably a two part question for you. I think we can we can we can address that on an affordability, you know I look to a couple of instances that that that are working well I look at when mcash and Bonnie is doing in India and what he's done with geo, and the devices and the affordability all things he kind of prices the devices relative to what that family can afford, and then starts to deliver applications and solutions that are actually beneficial to the family and individuals who are using that me I think again you have to look at the ecosystem in its entirety to think about how do you manage the economic rent in it to improve the station and quality of opportunity for for the citizenry and individual countries and you can that's, you know that is a great model to evaluate and to look at in the US, one of the things that we've been working with companies like Bank of America, which I think they've done a wonderful job coming forward with this equality progress sustainability bond and you think about it one of the things that we have in this environment today is low interest rates. Well why not have corporate CEOs you say listen the right answer for us is to go issue these bonds Bank of America issued a $2 billion bond and it gets you know 70 basis points. So what it what it what we yield is etc over subscribed. And what's neat about it is the first bond that actually has distinguishes the use of proceeds to actually go against some of these sustainability goals and the initiatives very specifically. And if you take top 50 top 100 corporations in America, and they start issuing these bonds every six months every year. That actually creates capital in the marketplace that a investors are interested in be can actually now solve these problems very specifically in building out infrastructure, building out last mile it might be subsidy it might actually be you know development that has real economic return, and also build out training centers which I think is one of the most important things if you build training centers that for MSP or managed service providers, it creates jobs and jobs are the thing that actually in a local community actually create the economic uplift if you have, you know young people who learn how to be service technicians, and they can serve you know the restaurants the doctors offices the dentist offices the healthcare clinics, and that's an individual business that now can support a family that that you know through through through surfacing the infrastructure in capacity. The digital infrastructure capacity for that neighborhood for that community, then of course can help drive more more more capital into that community so part of the walk the walk for CEOs one thing CEOs absolutely can do. Beyond saying we're going to do this is actually issue these bonds and drive them to these specific initiatives if you do that, it can put billions of dollars into the US economy to support some of these activities and make changes today. Well, I love those tangible ideas. We all do Robert I mean because a lot of times people again just it's talk but having these ways these paths forward is very very inspiring and provides I think everyone with real hope that we're going to get some real results here. We are going to wrap up this portion of this session. So, stick around please if you were a web participant on top link. Otherwise, I want to thank the panelists in particular ministering a very Robert Smith and Hans Vestberg, and thank you all for participating and this is just a jumping off point. I hope you guys are all excited by this Edison Alliance I want to hear much more about it and I'm looking forward to some real action as we go forward into 2021 and beyond. So again thanks very much and let's have everyone walk the talk. Thank you.