 global event, emerging technology for connectivity, accelerating digital transformation in LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. To set the stage for a week of thought-provoking insight, counsel and experience sharing, we are honored to receive welcome remarks from the directors of the ITU's three bureau and keynote remarks from executive leads of champion agencies. We start with the indy-fatigable director of the telecommunication development bureau, Dorian Bogdan-Martin. To you, Mrs. Bogdan-Martin. Thank you so much, Kim. Distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. It's such a pleasure to welcome you all to this first global event on emerging technology for connectivity. Over the next two weeks, we will be welcoming speakers from around the world and across the ICT ecosystem, including our UN sister agencies and we'll be sharing views and expertise on how new technologies can improve lives and particularly the lives of the billions living in LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS with of course a focus on digital cooperation and the 17 sustainable development goals. The past two decades have seen seismic shifts in the digital landscape and in his recent vision statement for his second term in office, the UN secretary general observed that advances in technology have left no aspect of life untouched, transforming and connecting the world in unimaginable ways, stimulating innovation and serving as a key driver of progress for sustainable development. And yet the digital transformation of our world is still in its infancy. So what are the new technologies and trends that will define the coming decade? And I think Kim to sort of frame our thinking, let's break this into three categories, innovation, implementation and impact. And let's start with innovative technologies. Take 5G. Last week I was in Barcelona, it was my first mission since COVID. I was in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress and of course the buzz around the halls was around the potential of 5G for sustainable development that was unmistakable. Of course the internet of things is another area that is particularly exciting for developing countries when we look at low cost IoT devices that are already helping revolutionize sectors like agriculture and resource management. And we can also point to a raft of core transformative technologies that are all gaining market traction from distributed ledger systems like blockchain to AI, extended reality interfaces, robotics and quantum computing. I think there's so much happening. It's really exciting, lots of innovations to watch out for. But then we have to think about implementation. So what about implementation and what will these emerging technologies mean for the way that we live and the way that we work? I think the critical role that digital now plays in people's lives. And of course, let's remember there's 3.7 billion people not connected. But what did the role that digital now plays means that users are getting much more demanding about how technology works for them. So issues around trust, transparency and accountability are becoming paramount. And people are demanding more agency and control over the systems that they interact with. And that brings me to the third pillar, which is impact. Leveraging the true power of digital transformation I think is going to mean moving to a much more collaborative people centric model and every new product and service is now destined to be part of a sort of personal digital ecosystem. And it needs to interact smoothly with other platforms and devices if it's going to add real value to people's lives. In this final decade of action, digital technologies represent the catalyst I think that we urgently need to accelerate progress towards those 17 SDGs. And of course, many of the emerging technologies that I've just mentioned could have their most compelling applications in the developing world. From AI supporting voice interfaces and dozens of languages, IoT sensors, digital work and learning platforms I think are opening up these new horizons for rural and remote dwellers. And with an eye on the objectives laid out for the fifth UN conference on at least developed countries and I'm pleased to have the new Undersecretary General joining us. And of course, tomorrow the UN system kicks off the high level political forum under the theme of sustainable resilient pandemic recovery for economic, social and environmental development. Our next two weeks are going to give us a platform for exchange so that we can learn from each other and be inspired by success stories. I think the key to our success will lie in as I mentioned before, keeping our focus firmly on people. And I think that for LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS that means involving grassroots entrepreneurs and communities in the work, collaborating with them on new solutions, harnessing the energy and the enthusiasm of local youths promoting self-self collaboration and of course, empowering people and communities with the means to innovate for themselves. So in closing, I do want to thank my fellow directors Mario Manovich and Chai Sub Lee. It's unusual that you get three of us and in opening ceremony, they're leading the radio communications in the standard bureaus respectively. But I think this kind of discussion in order for it to be meaningful on emerging tech, we need to also keep accounts of the spectrum implications as well as the standards process. I'm grateful that we're here. And Kim, I'm really looking forward to the discussions and to taking the outputs of this event forward to our World Telecommunications Development Conference so that we can inspire world leaders to put universal, affordable and above all, transformational connectivity on the top of every national agenda. Back over to you. Thank you. And so are we, director from the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. So now I want to receive welcome remarks from Mario Manowitz, director of the Radio Communication Bureau. Mr. Manowitz. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much, Kim. So, excellencies, distinguished guests, participants, friends, good morning, good afternoon and good evening to you all. It is a real pleasure for me to address you today and I would like to thank Doreen for her kind invitation. This shows that the three bureaus are working together towards what we believe is a common goal, which is helping developing countries, least developing countries, small islands and everybody that has to have access to technology. So I could not echo more what Doreen has just said regarding technology. I strongly believe that technology is for all, for all people in all countries. It can provide tremendous opportunities for social and economic development, especially during these COVID times. In the ITU radio communication sector, we are working to enable the development of emerging radio-based technologies. We do that through international regulations and standards. The international framework for managing the use of spectrum and satellite orbits now accommodates developments and innovations that have great potential to provide affordable coverage for people who live in rural and remote areas. To give some examples, the last World Radio Communication Conference has identified additional bands that may be used for high-altitude platforms. And the next conference will consider the use of these high-altitude platform stations as IMD-based stations for rural and remote areas. Moreover, the conference defined the regulatory framework for large constellation of low and medium orbit satellite towards further improving the coverage and reducing costs in isolated areas. The international framework is in place, but there is no one size fits all solution, as you all know. National regulators and policy makers have a key role in deciding, firstly, which technologies and services best fit their needs, secondly, what is the best timing to adopt them, and thirdly, the technology cost. First, regarding technology, there are suitable that some are suitable for countries with a high population density, while other are more adequate for less dense rural areas. The choice of small island development states, for example, would take into account their unique characteristic of remoteness and their sparse population spread across the territory. The second aspect is timing. When a new technology is launched, there is often a hype and great expectation of what the service can deliver and all it benefits. At this point in time, it is difficult to evaluate whether the hype is justified or not. So new adopters are often willing to pay higher prices to be at the forefront of technological evolution. There are, however, advantages to adopting a technology only at its maturity stage. The risk is lower, since the technology has successfully proven itself, the ecosystem is well-established, and the cost of devices and network equipment is lower. Which brings me to the third consideration, which is the technology cost. The price impact is of utmost relevance to increase technology adoption in countries with considerable lower gross national income per capita. Landlocked developing countries and least developed countries, for example, would need to have a $2 per month price basket if they were to reach the target of 2% GNI per capita set by the broadband commission. Finally, to use an emerging technology, the population needs to have the right skills and the interest. One of the greatest challenges to increasing the number of people connected to the internet is to improve digital literacy and develop content that would be meaningful to the intended target audience. Dear colleagues, in the ITU, we have developed regulations and standards to support a wide range of emerging radio-based technologies that address the needs of all countries, from developed to least developed countries from small island developing states to landlocked developing countries. However, the international arena is just the starting point. It is down to each country to define the emerging technologies that are adequate for them. What is the right timing to adopt them and at what price? These are national decisions that depend on the domestic priorities and needs. We call upon you to push the frontiers of the broadband connectivity and please count on us to support you in this challenging and exciting path towards transforming our societies and our lives. Thanks very much for your attention. Many thanks, Mr. Semenovich. Now, Dr. Chesab Lee, Director of the Telecommunications Standardization Bureau, will deliver his welcome remarks. Dr. Lee. Yes, thank you very much. My apologies. I just finished one of the events just before now. Even I have no time to change my background. So I just want to say to colleagues and friends, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this emerging technology week and that I wish you and your families are all in good health and good speed. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of our digital infrastructures and the need for serious improvements of ICT services and applications. But unfortunately, infrastructures are not reaching everywhere, in particular, LDCs, RBCs and SIDS. And services and applications are still too difficult for everyone, specifically like aged people and the people who need a special assistance. So I wish to share with you that year 2020, during the pandemic, ICT increased overall 80% of our participation in power events compared with year 2019, except decreasing 5% only from LDCs. I believe this is one of the clear evidence. The ICT industry continues to transform at an extraordinary pace. So all sectors are now transforming with the help of ICTs. For example, ICT standards currently support digital transformation from energy and transportation to healthcare, financial services, education, agriculture, and smart cities. And in our standards-developed collaboration platform, we support equitable access to the new capabilities and associated benefits introduced by advances in emerging technology, such as giga-level broadband connectivity over legacy telephone lines, lightweight optical fibers, e-services like e-hels, technology for financial inclusion and artificial intelligence. So inclusive standardization processes help us to move forward together. So with international standards, innovation can be shared worldwide. So working together in ICT standardization, we are reinforcing the new partnerships essential to our achievement of the sustainable development goals. In addition, we continue working to bridge so-called standardization gap to ensure that all countries share in the benefits of inclusive standardization processes. As we continue to grow in inclusivity, last year, IIT introduced reduced membership fees for startups and SMEs following the reduced fees for academia introduced in year 2011. And companies of all sizes in developing countries also benefit from reduced membership fees. So our world is highly diverse in culture, language, and the levels of economic development, but we convene at IITU in a spirit of collaboration and mutual respect. Together, we can build consensus on how we want emerging technology to factor into our future. So I look forward to our continued work together to ensure that our many interconnections help us to care for each other better and build a better future for, thank you very much, blow back to you. Thank you kindly, Dr. Lee. Now we are thrilled to welcome the first of our guest speakers, Mr. Courtney Rotary, UN Under Secretary General and High Representative for the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states. Mr. Rotary is an accomplished diplomat with a rich and distinguished career in the Jamaican Foreign Service, including a previous appointment as Permanent Representative to the UN in New York. Under Secretary General Rotary. Thank you, Madam Moderator. Can you hear me okay? I see a collective nod in our heads. Perfectly. Well, Excellencies, colleagues from the ITU, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, let me just say at the outset what a distinct pleasure it is for me to participate at this event, particularly as it is the first event that I am attending in my capacity as you have noted as the new USG for OHRLLS. I commend the ITU for placing a spotlight on the three most vulnerable groups within the United Nations family, the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and SIDS, small island developing states. My office is honored to serve these three groups which comprise 91 countries with a total population of slightly over a billion people. The theme of this event, emerging technology for connectivity, accelerating digital transformation in LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS provides us with an important and I think timely opportunity, an opportunity to not only consider the challenges but to identify concrete solutions-based approaches that can enable LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS to access and utilize emerging technologies. The COVID-19 pandemic underscores how poorly prepared many of these countries are in areas such as telemedicine, remote learning and e-governance. The latest data for 2019 from the ITU show that the odds are stacked against vulnerable countries but particularly LDCs. The proportion of people using the internet in least developed countries is at 19.5%. In the landlocked developing countries, only about 27% of the population use the internet. In SIDS, the proportion at around 52% is similar to the global average. However, this was much further away from the average in developed countries where almost 90% of individuals were using the internet. This is naturally of great concern as the internet is the critical driver of technological innovation. I think we can all accept that affordability, inadequate skills and lack of local content are among the factors leading to low internet usage, especially in the LDCs. Given the important role of innovation and technology in economic activity, the LDCs will be left further behind if current trends continue. So distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the impact that technology has on development simply cannot be overemphasized. When conceptualizing this event, the organizers identified several SDGs where emerging technologies play a key role. This just shows the centrality of technology as an important accelerator for achieving or development objectives. New advances in technology include the availability of high-speed broadband and we heard Mrs. Bogdan-Martin mention that this is being boosted by 5G in many advanced economies. And she also referenced the internet of things. Together with big data, this is spurring productivity growth and increasing innovation and competitiveness. Big data in particular is facilitating the increasing use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. All these have a significant impact on our daily lives and growth prospects by enhancing the ability for countries to participate in and compete in new dynamic and more adaptable work environments. Indeed, countries reaping the benefit of a digitally supported technological dividend have made rapid advances in automating key sectors of their economy, including agriculture, manufacturing and services. I'll give a few concrete examples of how emerging technologies can enhance development prospects in LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. In the agriculture sector, precision agriculture can enable farmers and extension workers to use digital services to observe, measure and analyze the needs of individual fields and crops. Not only can this increase their productivity but also help them to conserve scarce resources. Digital services can also enhance energy efficiency through, for example, the utilization of smart metering in homes and in businesses. In the healthcare sector, the opportunities are frankly endless. For example, having an electronic utility that can obtain real-time information to digitally measure and control the physical environment such as temperature and sound would be useful in the era of COVID-19, where nurses and doctors are operating in substandard facilities and national health systems in most vulnerable countries are on the immense strain. I am hopeful that emerging technologies will not only generate higher productivity within LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS, but spur the creation of new and efficient services, particularly those with higher value addition. This could stimulate new jobs demanded by the evolving labor market. For example, in customer service, data engineering, cybersecurity and behavioral health services. Depending on its scale, the growth potential in such areas could avert and net loss of jobs associated with technological disruption. There are, however, several concerns that I would highlight if you'd allow me. As I mentioned earlier, few people use the internet in LDCs, where only two in every 10 people are online. As was highlighted in the latest state of LDCs report prepared by our office, while it is possible for LDCs to leapfrog to frontier technologies, there is need to deal with severe constraints, including the ability to enable broadband internet connectivity and universal access to electricity. Additionally, attainment of a minimum level of education is required to ensure meaningful use of the internet. A 2018 report by ITU and our office found that secondary school enrollment has by far the highest explanatory power of internet. Gross enrollment for secondary education in LDCs still stands at less than 50%. A general concern regarding emerging technologies is its impact on employment, especially for low skilled workers. Increased scarcity in job opportunities could result in heightened levels of inequality. This would embody a gendered dimension as the expectation is that women will be affected more than men. There are also fears, legitimate fears, that the slow pace of adopting these technologies will erode the competitiveness of these countries, LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS, given that digitalization is a key determinant of productivity, making it even more difficult for them to attract much needed investment. A 2018 report by UNDESO warned that the new wave of automation will extend to many non-routine tasks, putting persons with low and medium skills more at risk than those that possess higher skills. Indeed, middle-skilled jobs have been particularly affected by automation and AI with wide-ranging distributional effects. Some other concerns relate to the spread of emerging technologies to include everything we use on a daily basis, the so-called internet of things, where there are valid and understandable issues related to privacy and security. There is also a major challenge related to the perceived need to embed a certain level of what I would say is social equity within AI-based technologies, especially as it relates to the algorithm bias in the healthcare system. As we all know, technology evolves very fast, and so our policy responses have to be both nimble and versatile. As we deliberate this week, the overarching question for us is how can we ensure that vulnerable countries are not left even further behind? So I will close by mentioning a few possible approaches. In order for LDCs to catch up, they will need to embrace the ongoing socioeconomic transformation processes driven by technology, while ensuring that the net effect on the labor market and productivity is positive. Now, this is easier said than done. Given that emerging technologies may negatively impact lower-skilled workers, it will be important to ensure that a greater proportion of people in vulnerable countries attain at least a secondary level education, the quality of which should be of a high standard. This would increase the numbers of high-skilled workers, especially those engaged in abstract thinking or with a creative and problem-solving ability. Extending digital technologies to remote areas which can connect rural, urban supply chains, for example, can be cost-effective and can redress pockets of informality and poverty in rural areas. There is also a need to invest in digital education and skills development to close the digital divide and increase human capacity so that LDCs in particular will be able to reap the benefits of digital transformation. However, given their fiscal constraints, vulnerable economies need help. Unlike advanced economies, they cannot mount strong fiscal responses on their own. As a result, demand for financial assistance from donors and other entities such as development finance institutions is sorely needed. And to this end, increasing ODA towards skills development will be key. So I'm encouraged by the recently designed International Finance Facility for Education which has the objective of providing new and additional education finance, including in digital solutions. While many vulnerable countries stand to benefit from this facility and will be able to borrow at affordable terms, it is important that the additional borrowing does not contribute to existing risks of debt distress. Therefore, the borrowing terms should be fully consistent with each country's debt sustainability framework. In addition, public and private stakeholders need to work together to build a more equitable and inclusive digital economy. Governments can do their part, obviously, including through tax exemptions applied to operators who engage in specific projects. One example could be the lowering of spectrum licensing fees. This could be done in exchange for a commitment to deploy and provide service in less profitable areas. So I am looking forward to your innovative ideas about advancing emerging technologies in LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. The implementation of the next program of action for LDCs coincides with the SDG decade of action. It is not an overstatement to say that this is the most critical time for our generation. It is time to realize our collective ambitions of building back better from COVID-19 and obviously leaving no one behind. Various stakeholders, including member states, the private sector, international organizations, civil society and academia would play a prominent role in the lead-up to and during the LDC 5 conference. I would therefore like to see the concrete outcomes that emerge from this event feed into the outcome of next January's Doha conference on LDCs. I thank you so much. Special thanks, USG Ratchery, for kicking off your new appointment with us. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Joshua Setipa, Managing Director of the Technology Bank for these developed countries with an illustrious portfolio of leadership roles. He is a past minister of government and CEO and has, among other things, held executive attachments with WTO and the World Bank. Mr. Setipa? Thank you very much. Let me also recognize the presence of colleagues, excellencies, distinguished delegates. Let me also take this advantage to congratulate Ambassador Ratchery and also welcome him to the UN family and his new capacity and we look forward to working with him as a new USG for each RLS. I should also thank Doreen and through Doreen and ITU for inviting the Technology Bank to be part of this important event, which is a demonstration of our strategic partnership with ITU as we continue to explore ways that we can support the LDCs in particular. As you know, this event is taking place in a new era of multiple complexities and prices of which technology has demonstrated a possible path to achieving the sustainable development goals and showing that no one is left behind. This topic is critical for the LDCs that were already left behind prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before getting to the core of the topic on imaging technologies, it is important to also recall that almost half of the world's population, including more than four in five people in the least developed countries, do not have meaningful access to the internet. In addition, the impact of the pandemic has exacerbated inequalities caused by the digital divide, connectivity and adequate infrastructure. Through multilaterals, it is critical to make meaningful efforts towards providing universal and affordable access to the internet in all LDCs and land-long developing countries and seeds, including through the provision of financial resources, capacity development for both human resources and institutions, and also to facilitate and encourage private sector to facilitate the requisite technology transfer. As noted in the ITU facts and figures in 2020, about a quarter of the population in the LDCs and the LDCs and about 15% of the seeds population still do not have access to mobile broadband networks. Coming short of the SDG Tech at 9C to significantly increase access to information and communications technology and to strive to provide universal and affordable access to the internet in the LDCs by the year 2020. The Technology Bank collaborates closely with the UN and other UN partners to continue to make efforts to help bridge this digital divide and to expand access supporting initiatives and institutions such as the Connect 2030 agenda for the Global Telecommunications Information and Communication Technology Broadband Commission, which seeks to enable the LDCs to achieve sustainable development goals. The Technology Bank has also partnered with our Alliance for Affordable Internet towards the reduction of costs of internet access, while also noting that reliable connectivity and digital cooperation are necessary building blocks for strengthening science, technology and innovation and also play a key role in bringing and bridging the digital divide and making technologies more accessible and intrusive. Moderators, you also know, among the most significantly impacted groups are children in the LDCs and seeds, where most of them have not been able to continue their education since March 2020. And as we're witnessing at the moment in some parts of the world, the threat of the third wave will extend this disruption to their education even further. Another key disruption is that is that to the tourism sector in these countries. And according to a recent audit report, the multiplier effect of the loss in GDP from tourism ranges from being one-fold to three-fold or even four-fold depending on the backward linkages in the tourism sector. And as you know, the tourism sector is one of the highest employers, particularly in the skilled labor sector. So the impact of this disruption to local economies has been mostly meaningful access to imaging and existing technologies is very critical for the LDCs, as has been said by previous speakers, to be able to build better and to attain resilient recovery than not only places that made a pre-pandemic level that enables them to participate, but also to develop and strengthen their productive capacities. It is also a reality that the majority of LDCs, even before the COVID pandemic, were really, they did not have much to build back better. So this has exacerbated that situation. We should also not lose sight of the fact that the LDCs in particular, being the furthest in the line, are the ones that have to be prioritized in these efforts to ensure that they are able to catch up with the rest of the local community. In as far as new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and Internet of Things, big data, blockchain, 5G and so forth, goes to be able to fully export the potential for these new technologies, digitalization and reliable connectivity are very critical to be able to maximize their multiplier impact. To benefit from these different types of imaging technologies, the government's private sector, academia and other relevant stakeholders must invest in bridging the gap in ICT infrastructure, strengthening human resources and institutions including regulatory capacity and aligning complementary policies such as STI and industrial trade and education policies. And these imaging technologies will require development of legal ethical and data protection laws to name a few and engagement and participation of LDCs in understanding the implications of embracing these imaging technologies remains very critical. The Upcoming Fifth UN Conference for LDCs in February 2021 presents an opportunity for multilateral partners to assist the LDCs to leverage the power of science, technology and innovation to find multidimensional vulnerabilities and to achieve the SDGs. And the conference also provides an opportunity for development partners to articulate transformative outcomes that will enable LDCs to access, adopt and adapt imaging technologies that will support the furthest through the following means. First, to enhance the STI capacity including integrating STI incubational development strategies to promote science technology and innovation ecosystems of the LDCs and align STI with industrial trade and education policies to create the enabling environment that attracts private sector to introduce and embrace the imaging technologies in the LDCs and to promote technology transfer and exchange of knowledge and know-how to continue pursuing Tech at MIME-C to reduce the cost of access meaningful cost of access I must add, particularly the LDCs and to also increase investment and research and development to increase productive capacities in the LDCs including incorporating participation of girls and women in STI instead. And last but not least to promote collaboration between academies of science in providing scientific advice to advise on policy formulation. While the technology bandwidth focused on the LDCs, the above list of actions can enable LDCs and seeds as they face similar challenges to leverage the power of imaging technologies. In closing, I also wish to embrace and applaud some of the initiatives that ITU is already involved in such as Connect to Recover which seeks to reinforce the digital infrastructure in ecosystems, the last malconnectivity initiative to connect the unconnected to the broadband and the joint guide to connect every school to the internet in partnership with UNICEF. The technology bank is ready to support the LDCs not only to recover from COVID-19 but to build resilience against future pandemics to embrace imaging technologies while also noting that the majority of LDCs, LDCs and seeds have limited capacities that should be enhanced to maximize the full potential of imaging technologies. I thank you very much for this opportunity. Very many thanks, Ms. Osetipa. We are honored today to have with us her Excellency, Ms. Viana Mayuno, Minister of Telecommunications and the Information Society in Ecuador. Minister Mayuno has a doctorate of jurisprudence and through a staggering portfolio of contributions has made tremendous impact on public services and the modernization and transparency of public administration. Your Excellency. Thank you very much. Good morning to all of us who are sharing this so relevant event today. It is a honor for me to share some reflections and experiences my country, Ecuador, with you in a government that has just started 30 days ago. If you allow me, I will continue in Spanish. We are witnessing a world where technological changes are increasingly important and the rise of a nation condemns it inevitably to the economic, social and educational track. Currently, almost all human activities are powered by the use of technology and, therefore, the need to democratize access to these digital resources has been accelerated. Thus, we will not only be fulfilling the duty of serving our citizens, but we will fulfill that great commitment that the states that form the United Nations adopted in 2015. The goals of sustainable development with the purpose of exterminating progress, protecting the planet and guarantee that all people enjoy peace and prosperity for 2030. Be sure that, guaranteeing a fair and equitable access to technology, we will fulfill the promise of not leaving anyone behind and including in the progress of those historically disadvantaged. Like many countries in Latin America, Ecuador maintains a gap in access to connectivity and appropriation of its population to the Styx. The study of rural connectivity in Latin America and the Caribbean, carried out by ELBIT, the Institute for Agricultural Cooperation and Microsoft, indicates that 32% of the Latin American population, 244 million inhabitants, do not have access to internet services. This study mentions that this disattention in connectivity deepens inequality, the link with knowledge, the exercise of the full rights of citizens and the possibilities of economic insertion. This hard reality invites us all and those who lead the telecommunications sector and TICC to work to reduce that digital gap, always thinking about the premise that, the smaller digital gap, more social equality and greater economic progress for all. Since we went up in the management of the Ecuadorian government a few weeks ago, we have designed a technological route that will allow us to approach citizens, to technology, understanding that if we do not make right and quick decisions, we will condemn the next generation to live in economic and social inequity. The pandemic showed the lack of connectivity, especially in rural areas. For this reason, we have started with great effort, a job, to determine the needs of connectivity in our country, understanding that access to internet is the transversal axis that allows the development of the rest of activities and services, such as telemedicine, teleeducation, electronic commerce, digital government and others. First, we will achieve that urban and marginal barriers have access to telecommunications services. To close the gap in rural areas, we have already inaugurated, in these few days, 54 new connectivity points, benefiting from marginal localities without any previous services. In addition to connectivity, we must evaluate the digital abilities of our citizens, so that they can also have access to devices and have economic accessibility, guaranteeing that these services are reasonably low costs. These are the fundamental pillars to reduce the digital gap and the obligation of the State to identify the mechanisms that allow connectivity to arrive, especially in marginal areas. For this reason, the addition of digital abilities, access to devices and connectivity will allow citizens to use new technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, fintech, 5G, among others. Regarding this, we are creating strategies to improve this connectivity, to make an increase in efficiency in public administration with the rise of digital governments and developing a digital social culture that boosts the economy based on new technologies. Many of them in our country are at an experimental stage or development stage, which we see as an opportunity to generate capacity and create new jobs to enhance the economy. We are aware that we need to articulate efforts between the State, the Academy and the private company to develop new technologies and to enhance the development of our countries with a fertile environment that generates opportunities for innovation, avoiding brain fumes and capacities and positioning research and development. For this reason, we have to guarantee access to connectivity and internet. We are still having other challenges after this to achieve a complete digital ecosystem. Ecuador must overcome the challenge of fostering culture and digital skills that allow the appropriation of the use of infrastructure and digital solutions to improve the quality of life and efficiency of public services by the government. For this reason, the digitization of the states and governments is essential. Another challenge is normative. Our country has been privileged for years to have a tributary recovery instead of the deployment of connectivity and economic development. In this sense, I agree with my colleague who considered it as an option to reduce the cover of the use of the spectrum in exchange for greater investments in rural connectivity and in disadvantaged areas. For this reason, we will continue to work in national and regional public policies that allow us to adopt the TICS and strengthen the surprises of this tour so that they have the capacity to develop new digital services, improve their investment returns and take our countries to a digital economy. For this reason, we also need to develop the infrastructure of the TICS, which in our country, at least, is complicated due to certain geographical conditions and due to the high investment costs. With a few tributary stimulus for the operators who want to invest, which we will soon be correcting and motivating from the regulation and from the government. This is important in the management of financing for the private sector in our country. We are putting our eyes and emphasizing the opportunities that private public alliances have given in other countries and in this same sector with the objective of replicating them. Albert Einstein once said that imagination is more important than knowledge. The TICS are not more than a creative form in which we use that technology to improve our lives. The digital agenda of Ecuador, the technological route and our new policies have a chapter dedicated to the choice of emerging technologies for sustainable development, aimed at fostering its use and promoting the innovation, development and research in the benefit of the productive sectors and the whole society, fostering a culture of data and strengthening of an environment that allows us to adapt these technologies contributing to the ODS-9, which impulses the construction of resilient infrastructures. In Ecuador, we have an inclination towards TICData, advanced analytics and computation in the cloud. In addition to artificial and robotic intelligence, we are going to focus on this, thinking and inviting organizations with which we coincide in the high value of technologies. What is our challenge then? Our challenge is to be in the vanguard and in sync with entrepreneurs who support us with innovation. From the social field, we will be applying projects for development and use of TICS emerging, while at the same time, we will diagram a regulatory normative framework that allows and facilitates the adoption of 5G and privileges for investment. In the social field, we are emphasizing on the connection via Wi-Fi of unattended, social or marginal areas. We also have pilot projects and new technologies to reach with the internet areas with little geographical access such as TV-WideSpace technology via transmission on the internet to far-away sites, occupying UHF frequency bands. In this, we are already making pilots that are in operation and have given excellent results. Additionally, I congratulate myself on mentioning that our country has one of the highest indexes in the region in terms of transmission in line. Ecuador is working for the digitization of documents such as identity and license to drive so that in the near future, citizens can make use of mobile devices by accessing such documents from their cell phones. We are also working hard to ensure that the largest number of projects are carried out in line until 2025, when the government will finish. With this, we will contribute to the objective 16 of the ODSs, promotion of just, peaceful and inclusive societies. The government of President Guillermo Lazo has coined a phrase that can be useful to make the description of the work not only in Ecuador, but all over the world. Together, we have achieved it. Together, public institutions, privates, NGOs and citizens in general, we will be able to integrate and connect the world through the TICS. The TICS, as an element and tool of the connection of the world, of the governments of citizens and the private sector, is our objective from the side of the government's administration. Thank you for listening and listening to us. Thank you kindly, Madam Minister. We now have the honor of hearing from Ambassador Dr. Perks Legoya, permanent representative of the Republic of Malawi to the UN in New York, having previously been permanent representative to UNF and UN Habitat. He holds a doctorate in economic policy management and has an impressive record of portfolios in the public and private sectors, as well as in diplomacy. Your Excellency. Thank you very much, Kim. Your Excellency, Minister Vienna-Maino, Minister of Telecommunications and Information Society in Ecuador. Congratulations for your new government. USG Courtney Ratley, High Representative for the List-Developed Countries, Landlock-Developed Countries and Small Island-Developing Countries, ITU representatives, Excellencies, Panelists, Ladies and Gentlemen. First, let me start by congratulating USG Courtney for assuming this important role of High Representative for the List-Developed Countries, Landlock-Developing Countries and Small Island-Developing States. You have taken over the role at such a critical time. Given your remarkable experience, I'm very confident that you'll be a great advocate of the issues concerning the three groups of countries. And as a friend, I wish you a very successful tenure of office. I also commend ITU for organizing such an important event. Thank you for dedicating an entire week towards discussing how to accelerate digital transformation in the LDCs, LLDCs and seeds. This event comes at a time when the LDCs are still grappling with the issue of the digital divide. The event also comes at an opportune time as concrete and implementable solutions raised here will feed into the outcome of the fifth UN conference on LDCs. The conference, as you may know, will be held in Doha in January. Excuse me, do you hear well? No, I'm not hearing any. Exactly, I think there is an issue. Possibly muted. Thank you. Bye. Ambassador Lagoya? He's not muted, but something is going wrong. We don't hear him anymore. Let me check. Ambassador Lagoya, if you can hear me, can you know it? We can't hear you. We can't hear you at the moment. Hi. Yeah, we can't hear you at all. I wonder if you'd allow us to go to the final speaker while we try to sort out your audio? Would that be okay, Ambassador? I'm so sorry. If the moderators would queue up the next speaker, which is a video message from Maria Francesca Spatuliciano. She is the Assistant Secretary General of the Policy Coordination and Interagency Affairs at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Officer in Charge of the Office of the SG's Envoy on Technology. She has in Terelia held several EU Ambassador appointments and served as head of the Economic and Trade Section of the EU delegation to the UN. And until we can get back audio from Ambassador Lagoya, we will switch to the video message from the Assistant SG. Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor to join you today at this opening session. Thanks to the ITU for inviting me. COVID has shown us how now more than ever our ability to connect, communicate and engage online is fundamental to our everyday lives. Yet, as we are all painfully aware, this connectivity and access is not enjoyed by everyone all around the world. With 3.7 billion people, particularly women and in the developing world, still offline. This fundamental gap between the digital hands and have nots means that people do not have the most basic access to the online world opportunities. This is why the United Nations Secretary-General's roadmap for digital cooperation, his vision for a more open, free and secure digital future of role sets out concrete actions to ensure that every person has safe and affordable access to the internet by 2030. This is urgently needed, particularly for developing countries and even more so in least developed countries where more than 80% of people are not connected. This connectivity gaps also exacerbate already existing social and economic inequalities, as those people and communities already marginalized and vulnerable are also more likely not to be online. This is even more stark in developing countries, whereas in high-income countries, 87% of school-aged children and adolescents are connected. In low-income countries, this figure is just 6%. All of this means that we have fallen seriously short of SDG Target 9C, which aims to, and I quote, significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the internet in least developed countries by 2020. Ensuring universal, affordable and meaningful connectivity for all must be an urgent priority for the international community. We must also take a human-centered approach to connectivity, considering how to leave no one behind in addressing the digital divide. The Office of the Tech Envoy is proud to work with the ITU and many of you present today on this as part of the implementation of the Secretary-General's roadmap. What is also critical and I'm glad that ITU has organized this event is the question of how to leverage emerging technologies to achieve connectivity. The global conversation regarding internet access has tended to focus predominantly on mobile connectivity being at the forefront of deployed solutions. But we should also take into account alternative technologies such as LeoSatellites, TV, Widespace, Wireless, Wi-Fi and Fiber. To some extent, our analysis and viewpoints regarding the cost and affordability of connectivity has been based of technology of the past and we need to consider emerging technologies that could drive the future. While mobile and broadband will remain important, we should also look into infrastructure investments that move beyond simply building mobile towers and consider fiber cables, satellite and wireless deployments. In this perspective in a few days my office will be organizing together with ITU and the UN Office on Outer Space Affairs a discussion on space-based technologies for connectivity to explore that potential. We must also continue to focus on the LDCs, LLDCs and the CIDs and their particular needs because there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this complex issue of connectivity. Ahead of next year's fifth LDC summit in Doha our office is working with partners including the UN Office of the High Representative for the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states as well as the Technology Bank for LDCs to see how we can better harness the power of digital technologies for the LDCs. Finally, even as we strive to connect the unconnected, we must bear in mind that connectivity and online access by itself is not a solution to everything. Connectivity must also be accompanied by measures to ensure the safety and security of those brought online through education and necessary digital skills and literacy so that all can be fully empowered and engaged. This entails for instance addressing possible online harms and risks and users' vulnerability to online exploitation and abuse including countering misinformation. The time to act is now. Connectivity remains the pressing issue to ensure that all can benefit from the Secretary General's vision of a more open, free and secure digital future as embodied in the roadmap. The Office of the Tech Envoy remains committed to working with all of you to make this a reality. Thank you. We are very grateful for the ASG's remarks and you would notice that we are just on the 9 o'clock hour in my time zone. We have the kind of permission of the next session to allow us to go over time just in order to hear Ambassador Lagoya's brief remarks and then we will close with a picture and then we will hand over to the next session if you will be so kind participants to allow us to go into the next session for which we have permission. Ambassador Lagoya? I'm sorry, I'm still not hearing. Let's try that again, Ambassador. You can hear me. But we still can't hear you. Let's try one more time and if not, we will go to the photo and then try the audio one last time. Still not hearing. Perhaps we can go to the group photo. You can hear me. The question is if everybody, panelists as well as participants, if we all open up our cameras and we offer a great big smile, happy to be here at the start of this exciting week on emerging technologies as our technical staff will take pictures to capture this moment. One second. Please put your best smile ready. Here we go. I have more participants just a second. Again, please smile. Amazing. One last time. Amazing. This is done. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Let's hear from Ambassador Lagoya. I'm so hoping that your audio is back up. Well, that you can hear me, but we can't hear you still. So that being the case, I believe that we will need Ambassador Lagoya if you will allow us. I believe that we would need to move on and perhaps if there is time in the next session, perhaps you can add your words once your audio is back up and we will need to move on to the next session. So let me take the opportunity to offer gracious thanks to all of our speakers. We deeply appreciate your time and the wisdom shared. You have primed us to derive maximum profit from this week of immersion in emerging technology for connectivity 2021. Thank you so much. Thank you to all of our speakers. And to the website where you will find full bios of all of our speakers. So now we are pleased to hand over to his excellency Professor Mohamedu Khar, permanent representative of the Republic of Gambia to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva Thank you to all. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Loud and clear. Loud and clear, your excellency. I was on top. I think you have your mic open if you can kindly mute your mic. Good afternoon, excellencies. This has been quite a wonderful day sitting in through the opening ceremony to this very last session. It's been very, very wonderful. Our session today is Trends in Emerging Technology for Connectivity. I will give an opening statement and then we will go right into the panel. At the onset, permit me to extend my thanks and sincere gratitude to the leadership of the ITU for inviting me to moderate this very important session and indeed for putting together a very distinguished panel and series of very important engagements. As you are aware, as said, the topic of our discussion, Trends in Emerging Technology for Connectivity is an especially important one as this relates to developing countries. It provides our countries with an opportunity to leapfrog and bridge the digital divide. Emerging technologies also enable us to play catch up quicker than we have ever imagined since the industrial revolution left many of us behind and in doing so marginalize our countries and indeed our people. Appropriate adoption of emerging technologies solving the last mile challenges with access to affordable and reliable broadband connectivity, digital platforms and services with adequate, skilled and quality human resources will stimulate wider commercial opportunities creating additional jobs across value chains and sustaining livelihoods for millions. The centrality of adequate investments, capacity and competency building are key requirements for LDCs to adapt and benefit from the evolving trends of emerging technologies and connectivity. Some of these technologies have been discussed in earlier presentations today. Implementing and deploying these emerging technologies to resolve connectivity challenges requires smart policy requirements to build smart infrastructure driven by these emerging technologies. Further, it is key that these evolving emerging technologies unleash affordable connectivity and digital services and tools for rural communities. Harness and unleash the creativity and resilience of women and youth to facilitate building the productive capacity, scalability and the ecosystem to facilitate growth and development. Resilience, sustainability and well-creation across LDCs. As developing countries, governments, civil society organizations, private sector, private sector startups continue to embrace and adopt these evolving trends of emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, deep learning, robotics, big data, IOTs, blockchains, bitcoins and digital currencies. This is a very, very exciting topic and to conclude, I would say substantive adoption of the trends of emerging technologies for connectivity, valuable data governance and digital inclusion and building the digital platform, service ecosystems will most likely only evolve in LDCs if they are able to access hubs with affordable broadband connectivity and with alternative and renewable energy to power them and also have youthful populations empowered women with high quality and rigorous innovative education systems and institutions with constant and continuous supply of motivated quality graduates with high technical social competencies plus entrepreneurial drive, passion and enthusiasm to create wealth and provide solutions to these SDGs using these emerging technologies. Emerging technologies and evolving technologies will not yield the intended values for LDCs if we don't substantively scale and build the required requirements of competencies and capabilities around these tools and to reinvigorate and disrupt how we do STEM education. It is critical for us to be able to harness these wonderful technologies that are coming to us at speeds. On that note, I thank you very much and welcome all of you to this session in which through our distinguished panelists we intend to introduce various ways and interventions that showcase selected initiatives on emerging technologies for connectivity. Panelists will discuss solutions and share their experiences as to the use of emerging technology to connect the unconnected and in doing so our panelists will highlight how the UN Sustainable Development Goals SDG4 Quality Education, SDG9 Industry Innovation and Infrastructure SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG17 Partnerships for the goals should be implemented especially in LDCs, SIDs and LLDCs. Distinguished participants, I now call upon Dr. Aminata to take the floor and set the stage so that we can hear from our panelists. Dr. Aminata, you have the floor. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Your Excellency Ambassador Ka. Can we have the presentation please? Thank you. So I will be having this talk today which will be a broad overview of emerging technology for connectivity. I wouldn't go in-depth on anything but I will try to go on the different technologies and also some of the key constraints that we will be discussing. Next slide please. So we have heard it in the previous discussion that about half of the world population is still offline and in this offline population most of them are concentrated in the list developing countries. Only 19% of the people in LDCs are online and in Asia Pacific it's about 27%. And when we go regionally Africa and Asia Pacific are the list connected regions where in Africa it's less than 30% and in Asia Pacific around 45%. So we can see here that really when we focus on LDC and LDCs which is the focus of the meeting this week with a few people online it means there are many challenges to connect these people but it also means that there are many opportunities and the objective of this week is to see what are the opportunities how can we best choose the solutions and best connect these people. So if we go in the next slide please we have discussed in a previous work in ITU the last mile connectivity solutions guide to connect the unconnected. The first one will be to identify the people who are unconnected and this is actually we know that there is 80% of people unconnected in LDCs but the question is where are these people can we really pinpoint exactly the position where the people are and this is important in order to define what are the best solutions to connect the people. So the first step will be to identify the people and the second one is to look at what are the different options and this will be actually the focus of my talk today. What are the technology options? When we talk about options there could be other options not only technology options but my talk will focus on technology today because it's the theme of the day and then in the third step is to select what is this the best option and then we will go into account the constraints the constraint of the geographical constraint but also looking at the viability of the service and looking at the affordability of the service and I will come back to this towards the end of my presentation and finally it is to select and really put in place interventions to be able to connect the unconnected. So the talk today will be focusing on step two and the first step which is about identifying the people who are unconnected there are many initiatives on connectivity mapping and we can group them into four categories the first is the demand mapping saying what is the bandwidth demand what is the quality of service demand are people willing to pay for these services and the infrastructure mapping is a type of mapping when we look at what are the existing infrastructure maps which you will hear about tomorrow is one of these type of infrastructure mapping and then you can have order mapping the utilities mapping thank you so you can have utilities mapping for example it's important to know whether or not in the places we intend to extend the connectivity there is electricity are there existing so that we see how to build the fiber so this is a type of mapping which is important the third one is investment are there already investments in place or do we need to look at investment and the service mapping is to look at the type of services the type of data cap the type of prices which can be offered this will be a focus on a presentation tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. so that wouldn't be my focus but I thought it was really important to focus on data and mapping it's really the first step of identifying what we need to do to do and I invite you for the tomorrow meeting at 2 p.m. to go in-depth into mapping and data in the next slide I will start talking a little bit more about the different the different next slide please I will start talking about the different connectivity options so this slide is showing some of the wireless technology options so when we look at them the first one is the Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is an old technology for sure but it has been improving and then we have more and more innovation going on the latest Wi-Fi Wi-Fi 6 or 802.11aX is now offering a large bandwidth usually Wi-Fi I give you limited coverage and then limited bandwidth and now we still have limited coverage but it is being extended with extended Wi-Fi and now we can see that Wi-Fi can offer really competitive data and it is an option which is being considered and being implemented in case studies in Google connectivity and in some places where you lack connectivity it has this benefit of being cheap enough and then one option for connectivity which is most likely the most popular technology option is the wireless cellular where we have 5G, 3G, 4G and then we are talking about 5G in this category 5G is the emerging one and then the advantage of 5G and we heard it from the previous speakers is that 5G will really give you large bandwidth it gives you midrange but it also allows to connect a lot 5G is based on this densification of the network and then allowing having very low latency so if you have a lot of connections which require low latency and willing to connect a lot of things not only people it is a good candidate for that and then we have the fixed wireless option the fixed wireless usually will build upon existing network it's a type of microwave technology point to point technology providing the connectivity to the places to the homes to the organizations it's not a mobile technology but a wireless microwave type of technology it has the advantage of giving you higher bandwidth than mobile but it is a fixed type of technology so that will be the drawback but it is an option which is interesting in places where you already have infrastructure and then you can use in top of the existing infrastructure to offer the fixed wireless and then the traditional satellites which have this advantage of being available everywhere and then we will talk about the satellite technology on Wednesday and see what are the new innovations happening in the satellite industry next slide please in the next slide I will be talking about the warland technology for connectivity mostly focusing on the fiber for LDCs fiber has really been a very solid candidate for connectivity fiber gives this huge bandwidth huge also coverage it can be costly as initial investment but it is a long-term investment after that the operating costs can be smaller so fiber is a solid candidate but indeed sometimes the initial cost of investments so can be has to be considered and I wouldn't focus on coax and copper that will be mostly in places where you already have legacy infrastructure they are innovation happening these very old technologies but in places like LDCs where we don't have too much legacy infrastructure these are not something too much to look at but they are innovation and they can also they should be considered if they exist already to look at what are the innovations next slide please for the specific emerging technology for connectivity we have the HABS the high altitude platform stations like the balloons the drones and they have this advantage of having huge coverage they have good enough possible to put the initial investment of course is high and we will be also talking about HABS on Wednesday afternoon at 3pm and the low satellite the low earth orbit satellites so this is really the emerging technology it's actually an old technology which has been reinvented so it is an emerging technology now in the satellite and it has the advantage of giving lower latency than the traditional satellite and it has a huge coverage we also have a presentation in Leo on Wednesday so I wouldn't focus much on that millimeter wave and TV white space these technologies not really to allow you to use to optimize the spectrum so the idea of millimeter wave is to use the frequencies which are higher than 30 gigahertz so usually we are using lower band of frequency now we as we know spectrum is a resource which is limited the idea of millimeter wave is to use the very high frequencies which are available the drawback of it so the advantage is that we will have much more spectrum maybe cheaper services because spectrum is available in that range but the drawback is that they are more sensitive to obstacles than the regular frequencies we use for wireless so there is there is a need to do a little bit more work and optimization to get a lower range of the communication to go and then the TV white space in the same range the idea is to use the unused spectrum in the TV and also to optimize the use of spectrum the unused spectrum will be used for TV white space the free space optical communication is also an old technology which is being revisited we have a talk on free space optical communication on Wednesday also at 2pm I invited you to follow if you want to learn a little bit more about this technology and the idea is that fiber is great optical communication is great but when we talk about fiber we have to dig and then put the fiber the free space optical communication is using free space so it's a wireless optical communication method so the advantage will be that you have less cost to build the fiber obviously you will have very low range then you will have for the fiber you will have more obstacle and lower throughput sometimes but it is a good alternative to consider in some cases the low range or lower the advantage is that you can use that usually designed for Internet of Things initially it can be used to connect a lot of things at the same time but it offers very low bandwidth and we have seen now some use cases where they are considering using low range even to connect people but in cases where you need low bandwidth for the connectivity the power the power line communication it's an old technology but the idea of the power line communication is to use existing electricity grid in order to offer connectivity we have a very interesting talk on Wednesday afternoon at 2pm on the power line communication which I invite you to follow so I wouldn't spend too much time on it but it is a technology in places where you already have the electricity infrastructure and it allows you to actually use something which already exists to optimize your existing infrastructure to offer connectivity. The next slide please and I think I'm going out of time I wouldn't stay in this slide but the idea of this slide is when we look at all these technologies all of them we can say one is better than other rather what is the technology which most suits the needs we have in that place we need to connect and when we do that we need to look at which one will be more sustainable in the place we need all of them I think are equal it's which one will be the best fit the need we have at this time and I will stop here in the next slide please I thank you very much for your attention and I would like to acknowledge that some of the slides of these presentations are coming from the ITU last month Internet Connectivity Solutions Guide and then in this slide you can see the link to download the report. Thank you very much Ambassador I give you back the floor Okay good afternoon and thank you very much Dr. Aminata for your very valuable presentation now I will give the floor to Mr. Teddy Woodhouse a research manager of A4AI will take the floor please Mr. Teddy Thank you Your Excellency can you hear me? Yes we can hear you Perfect thank you Excellencies, friends, colleagues it's supposed to join you today so yes to introduce myself I'm Teddy Woodhouse I'm a research manager at the Alliance for Affordable Internet and I think there are slides with my presentation I don't know if I'm supposed to put them up or if someone will put them up for me IT can you please share the screen Yes Perfect just coming in now excellent so yes so I'm with the Alliance for Affordable Internet or A4AI and so what I wanted to focus on a lot today is thinking about the foundations of emerging digital economy and in many ways what this comes from is as we're focusing on emerging technologies there's something that there are other things that have to emerge with those technologies in tandem with those technologies as we can think of as forms of hardware or forms of equipment there's also emerging practices in policy and regulation that are quite important to support the development of those technologies and their adoption of different parts of the world where contexts justify their utilization and so the thing I want to focus on here is as we're thinking about all of these practices and all of these new technologies a crucial thing is to think about how inclusive they are and how effective they are in bringing as many people online and including as many people as possible in these digital economies that we're looking to grow as we come out of the global pandemic and the recovery from it so in the next slide summarizes my talk quite quickly I'll introduce my organization the Alliance for Affordable Internet just in case you haven't heard of us before summarize a bit about affordability and access today as we see it go into a bit of detail about the impact of policy decisions as they're influencing these questions that we're talking about today and then talk a bit about some policy recommendations and kind of steps ahead as we see them of what are quite important trends to think about so next slide to introduce ourselves we at the Alliance for Affordable Internet are the world's broadest technology sector alliance and we bring together public sector, private sector and civil society across the globe to work on driving down the price of broadband for everyone and we focus on transforming policy and regulatory frameworks through that action and in the next slide there's just a quick summary of some of our member organizations and our focus around a set of good practices which are all kind of thought to be connected to the driving down of the cost of internet access in many parts of the world and as an organization we focus in particular in low and middle income countries and thinking about the unique dynamics that play in the technology markets in those areas so if we can skip forward two slides from here this is just a quick summary of some of the research that we do as an organization and what we try to contribute and kind of value add of why we ask for a bit of your attention today is every year we publish the affordability report which assesses the policy and regulatory environments throughout several parts of the world the latest edition had around 70 countries looking at how they're set up to support those emerging technologies as they come in and as they create the space and market pressures for the cost of internet to reduce so in the preceding presentation many of those technologies for example TV white spaces redo assessments on how well and how inclusive are the licensing frameworks or the spectrum policies in place effective at adopting and harnessing and leveraging those technologies to reduce the price of broadband for people in the market and there's a number of other things that we cover including quality of service metrics and also the cost of devices in many parts of the world in the next slide this is quite the quick summary of the thing that we focus on and what we are paying attention to at the Alliance for Affordable Internet we create an index called the ADI which is short for the Affordability Drivers Index and what it is is an amalgamation of the number of different policy factors in each country that's ranked numerically from a scale of 0 to 10 and how effective is the policy at arranging spectrum at universal service at setting a broadband strategy there's a number of factors how all those scores combining together reflecting kind of the effectiveness of broadband policy at the time and so that's the orange line you see there quite fortuitously one of the good things is policies gradually are getting better over time and the green line in comparison is average of 4 can I ask you to slow down a bit for interpreters it's kind of difficult yes of course yes so I'll slow down so that is the orange line which focuses on the affordability drivers index which is that assessment of quality of different policy environments and the green line in comparison at the same time which is quite fortuitous for us we see the decreasing affordability or increasing affordability or decreasing prices of internet in many parts of the world as these policy environments are improving so we're quite heartened by this relationships that we're seeing emerge over time that is as policies are getting better to include these emerging technologies the price of broadband for many people across the globe is reducing at the same time so in the next slide what I wanted to quickly summarize is we have we do regional snapshots throughout many parts of the world and most recently we did a regional snapshot for at least developed countries and countries in that classification to understand the comparison of different countries and the ways that they are thinking about the policies that are relating to these emerging technologies this is a quick link to that report you can also find other supporting materials related to the affordability report in the most latest edition at that link but what I want to focus on is in the next slide so if we think about the summary situation amongst LDCs and this classification again it's 17% of the population is online 41% of the population is covered by a 4G network which is crucial for what we see to be meaningful connectivity which is the point at which connectivity is no longer just the first experience this is someone coming online and based activities but then being able to use the internet more meaningfully in work, life play in other parts of life as well but also quite crucially and unfortunately the size of the gender gap in this part of the world is quite stark and the balance between men and women participating in online life is quite extreme and something that we look to close and should be considered an urgent policy priority in the coming years so in the next slide covers the 10 highest scoring countries amongst LDCs and so this is just a quick summary of the placement of all these countries to get a sense of what are some of the countries that have the world leading policy and regulatory practices that are relating to these emerging technologies that we're talking about over the course of this week and some of the strongest countries that we've identified are Senegal, Benin, Cambodia and Uganda each of them have individual strengths to the way that they are considering many of these policy issues and there's also many of these other countries as well have strengths in their own right relating to many of these policy issues as well in the next slide this just to quickly confirm why does this matter so what you see along the bottom access is the index score of all of these countries and so the further along the right it is the higher the quality of the policy environment as we see it in these individual countries and then along the vertical access you see the affordability of data so you want to be as close to the bottom right is kind of the most desirable situation for an individual country and quite crucially we see that of the countries that have met the definition of affordability that we have which is one for two so it's the affordability of one gigabyte of data to no more than 2% of the monthly average income in that country only three countries that are classified as LDCs have met that and all of them have comparatively quite high policy scores so we see this chain reaction occurring of having a high policy score having a strong policy environment leads to better market conditions which then again leads to more affordable prices for everyone and with those more affordable prices that next step that we see as well is that emerging technologies become more ubiquitous, they're more common and more affordable for more people to use and take advantage of so continuing on to the next slide just wanted to emphasize some of the positive progress that has happened so far in the context of LDCs on average the price of one gigabyte of data has transitioned down over the past four years from around 4.5% of average monthly income to now 1.6% in 2019 and that continues to track down as we have collected later data a number of countries have seen the cost of one gigabyte of mobile broadband come down by more than 60% in that same time period so in the span of about four or five years one gigabyte has become exponentially much more affordable for millions of people and in particular the positive case in Rwanda looks at how the price of one gigabyte has reduced from 20% in 2015 to now just a little bit over 3% in 2019 so in the next slide the one thing I wanted to finish with was okay so reflecting on this information what do we need to be doing what is the urgent policy action that comes ahead so in the next slide the thing I would recommend focusing on is on national broadband plans these are one of the core indicators in a country's affordability drivers index score and it's also one of the most influential single policy documents for a country to adopt that then affects the quality of its market and the development of emerging technologies that then favor greater affordability and accessibility of the internet throughout a country and so here we see amongst LDC countries that we monitor that national score on the affordability drivers index along the bottom and then also the national broadband plan as we ranked it internally and we see quite a close relationship that countries that have a strong national broadband plan and score a higher score in that one indicator then also tend to have stronger scores and a better policy environment throughout other parts of their market whether that's spectrum governance the regulatory framework or universal access and so that's why we think that national broadband plans are such a crucial policy document to think about what needs to be done and so in the next slide this just summarizes what are some of the important things that broadband plans create smart spending so they make governments more effective in their public spending they create market stability which favors better and deeper private investment and they also create a sense of accountability which allows people and citizens to engage in the policy making process as well and create a greater sense of trust in the trajectory of a market's development over time so in the last slide and I'll quickly wrap up here one of the most recent affordability reports as relating to broadband plans is bringing in a diverse inputs from a diverse range of sectors whether that's private sector, public sector and civil society and so even within public sector it's quite important to bring in multiple ministries to think about how these emerging technologies and how these digital issues relate to other sustainable development goals and health, the environment and how they should interrelate and how we want them to relate to each other in the future the second one is that every good broadband plan has targets that come with a clear measurement and a time limit so there is a sense of accountability throughout the achievement and the lifespan of that document and the third one is that a plan must come with funding commitments, words are only so good words should quite frequently ideally be followed up with action and that creates a system of assessment and review for a government over time to continue to develop their emerging policy and regulatory practices along with emerging technologies that come in and help innovate within this space and so that's a quick summary of what I wanted to highlight here as what we see as quite a crucial aspect is the development of emerging policy and regulatory practices that support in turn the adoption of emerging technologies in different parts of the world that then create that emerging digital economy that is inclusive and kind of grows to scale to include as many people as possible and lift as many people out of poverty as possible as well so I'll conclude there and thank you all for your time today Thank you very much for that presentation Teddy we appreciate your contribution now we move to our next presenter Mrs. Teresa Gomez the CEO Internet Paratudus will take the floor kindly take the floor Good morning, can you hear me? Yes Good morning First I would like to thank the invitation to be part of this session as a representative for everyone because for us it is an opportunity to show our project and the model that we are using to connect to the non-connected with views that this model can be replicated in the rest of the world Internet Paratudus can help me with the presentation, you are showing it I see it Can we have the presentation? Thank you Internet Paratudus was born from the initiative to create the digital breach in Latin America where we know more than 100 million people without internet connectivity where the connectivity index of rural areas is important in the urban areas and that's why Internet Paratudus is created in Peru, product of the Peruvian Telephone Alliance Facebook Connectivity, CAF and VirInvest a mobile infrastructure operator an innovative and sustainable model with the goal to connect more than 6 million people in rural areas of the country in order to give them the same opportunities and to promote their economic and social development and therefore the development of the same Peruvian country The next one Thank you No, before One page before Yes Ok It began its operations in 2019 selecting Peru as a pilot country a country with important challenges as well as great opportunities to execute the project between the challenges for the connectivity of rural areas and the barriers we know are characteristics responsible for the connectivity of these areas We have in Peru a complicated geography mountains, jungle and coast a low income level of the people and a low population density mobile operators have urban focus due to intense traffic in these areas and basic infrastructure is poor and scarce Finally, technology is designed for the demand of urban areas beyond the existing challenges We found in Peru important opportunities to start the operations and look at the goal of connecting between the main ones a regulatory framework that includes a single model in the world mobile infrastructure operator or IMR This figure was created precisely to encourage the coverage of mobile services in rural areas in Peru IMR can provide its mobile access infrastructure and transport rates to mobile operators of the country so that they can extend the service in rural areas of the country through a major model IMR is the one that makes the infrastructure investment maintenance and operation in the area of less than one place its spectrum, the core and maintains the relationship with the final customers Precisely this concession is the one that has internet for everyone to operate in Peru the concession of rural mobile infrastructure operators Another of the opportunities that Peru has is the existence of optical fiber in regional development in Peru that extends from north to south and from east to west and they are investment projects that can be used by the private or any operator that wants to operate in rural areas and finally and not less important Peru has more than 6 million or had more than 6 million people that did not have internet mobile services 3.2 million people only had the 2G voice service and other 2.8 million people do not have any kind of service, neither voice nor data Next Internet for everyone is an example of alliances for the development of objectives objective number 17 when Telefónica recognizes the need to develop collaboration strategies and seek allies to connect in a sustainable way of course they had the same goal of cutting the digital gap and thus breaking paradigms and acting in a disruptive way it is possible to concrete the alliance between Telefónica, Facebook, CAF and Bidinbest Telefónica places as a heritage a network of more than 3,000 sites 2G in rural areas and at the national level in Peru as well as its technological experience like Facebook that together with other partners also place capital for the necessary investments of the project our technological model and business is based on innovation and sustainability and we use the concept of network as a service where we act as a neutral host where our infrastructure we offer it in a shared way and we give the same access to the mobile operators of the country so we allow them to extend their service to a low cost and maintain the relationship with their customers here precisely the efficiency of our model our operation and maintenance is based on open systems or PNMS, virtualization and automation as well as we are also using predictive models for the reduction of failures and the reduction of operating costs so we also believe that this increases the availability of the service in rural areas where the transfer to attend a failure can require even days we bet on new technologies innovation open ecosystems because we believe that it is the only way for the reduction of investments and costs in addition to adjusted solutions to conditions and rural demand in IPT we have an important open run we have the use of non-licensed radio and we are doing tests with TV wide space like Bajol for the size 4G in the same way we believe that the sharing of the infrastructure to enhance the sustainability of the deployment and acceleration is very important we cannot believe that a single operator can build all the infrastructure that is needed to connect the non-connected and finally we use Big Data and Business Intelligent for the planning and adjust all our solutions to rural demand next please what have we done in the last 2 years of work since we were created Internet for everyone has implemented more than 1,600 sites LTE 4G to provide connectivity to more than 2.1 million people who are in 12,000 populated centers for which we have invested more than 40 million dollars in equipment and services on our infrastructure we are offering services to two mobile operators from Peru, Telefónica and Intel 50% of our sites 4G are using low satellite and the other 50% ground transport solutions we have become the allies of the state of Peru but also the allies of mobile operators being a solution to provide services in rural areas without losing focus on urban areas our commitment is still firm in 2021 and we want as an objective to connect more than 2.4 million people in more than 13,000 populated centers next please when the pandemic started worldwide the classes were preserved and the virtual classes model was adopted in Peru the government implemented the learning program at home via tv or internet but despite the efforts many children did not have access to their classes and others had to walk kilometers to be able to capture signal and connect to their classes in this context IPTE took knowledge that in the Canicuto a very small population in the Puno region the children had to walk for about 10 kilometers every day at a very important height to reach a hill in a mountain where they could capture the signal of the internet of course we committed to accelerate a solution for this population and we deployed the 4G service in this place providing the internet service to children this location and the location is to harm just to confirm that the internet for everyone is a model that is working we are already harvesting fruit and of course it can be a model that we can replicate in the rest of the world thank you very much thank you very much for that presentation ladies and gentlemen excellencies quite diverse presentations I will quickly go to the audience so that we can have some participation and questions if you have questions you can send it through the chat window or raise your hand and then we can channel it to the panelist the floor is open for Q&A you may raise your hand if you have a question we have Ghana Mr. Abdullah you have the floor thank you my question goes to the last presenter internet brother Para I want to find out in your country do you have a universal access fund and if you have what role do they play different from your company this is my question Claire yes the interpreters are working on it sorry could you repeat the question please the last part I didn't hear very well I want to find out if the rest universal access fund in your country and what role do you partner with the internet access fund in rolling out your networks or do they also play different role I want to understand the collaboration between the internet the universal access fund and then your company ok let's see in Peru there are universal funds of course and in fact there is a universal fund that was used for the construction of the optical fiber projects that today cover the entire country from north to south west we we can access the use of those optical fiber projects we don't receive any contribution to the company but not everyone can use those fiber projects that were made of course with the universal fund that already for us means an important lever to be able to use them it is also true lately after the Peruvian state is promoting several policies and norms in which it is allowing operators that all the taxes that are paid by the spectrum canon are directed to constructions of infrastructure in rural areas of the country and there the internet for everyone is one of the actors who then builds and explains their infrastructure in rural areas I don't know if with this I answered the question okay thank you do we have any more questions on the floor okay there is a question but is in Spanish I can translate that I will go ahead and ask a question to the panelists what are the most important points or aspects of the emerging technology that should be considered to accelerate the digital transformation in LDCs in LLDCs and SIDs I will start with Amina and then we go to the next panelist Amina can you please proceed thank you very much I think there are really many aspects to take into consideration picking the most important will be difficult but it is important to know whether or not what is the need we have first I think before going to technology technology should be looked at the main so the emerging technologies there are many of them I think a lot of them can do the job what we need to first look at is what do we need and then what which one of these emerging technology can help us most each the objective we have so if I take an example about is for example AI the artificial intelligence is a great emerging technology which can allow us to do a lot of things but the idea is what do we want to do with emerging technology with that AI what can that help us the most I think it's first as Teddy said initially we need to have a plan a strategy knowing what we want to achieve and based on that then we will select then what are the key aspects of this emerging technology we want and when we select this aspect that will definitely lead us to the technology which is best suitable to the need we have so I think so far technology has not been the biggest challenge because we have many of them rather the challenge has been do we have the policies in place do we have the strategy do we have the skills to use that technology and so on and so forth so I think all of these around the technology must be looked at and I don't know which one is the most important maybe the colleagues can help here but it's important to have this analysis prior to saying well this is what we want to do which technology it's together what do we want to do with the technology back to you thank you thank you very much Teddy can you please intervene here yeah sure so quite some of nature I mean that is response I think that issue brings out a really great question here about the intention with which we are bringing these new technologies into our lives and so from my perspective I think one of the biggest challenges the biggest problems that we need to confront is we can see that in many ways the internet as even kind of the recent history of it has been both reflection of many of the positive things of humanity but also unfortunately many of the negative things of humanity as well in ways that the digital divide is replicating divides and disparities that exist throughout many other parts of the world and so I think as we're thinking about emerging technologies both in terms of hardware again in terms of hardware and in terms of policy and regulatory practices the value there is thinking about what do these technologies do and how if we can can we foresee what are going to be some of the implications of these technologies or inequality for other aspects of society and ways that we can kind of bend the arc of history towards a more just future rather than just letting technologies kind of determine for themselves and see them as being self-led in their applications but really being intentional about did research in Uganda did you cover all the country yes so what we can do is I think we can give a quick summary of how the research is done in each of those 70 countries because it's quite a similar process in each country so in a country there's essentially four questions where we rely on an expert's consultation of the policy environment in that country so it looks at the national level about for example how streamlined or straightforward is the regulatory and licensing process in that country is it relatively straightforward and reliable to apply for a license to offer telecommunication services or can it create a stumbling block for new and smaller operators that would discourage innovation in the market so that's one example and how we do it and then there's also a number of secondary indicators again at the national level that are added in so for example market competition or the number of smartphones in a country and other aspects that help us evaluate the environment in that country in terms of policy and market realities but it's kept at a national level thank you very much Mr. Iza quickly but before we do that I want to take the opportunity to apologize to our interpreters that we started a little bit late and we will be very grateful if you can accommodate us for three to five minutes to wrap up the session I hope that is okay with you thank you much appreciated I would ask Mr. Iza to quickly intervene here with the question being asked earlier there was a question asked maybe one of the panelists can help repeat the question so I think the question was about what are the most important aspects to consider for emerging technologies thank you yes for me the most important thing to consider of emerging technologies is that they respond and they adjust to the conditions that they have in the rural areas okay many times I listen to talk about quality and it is given more priority to quality than connectivity and in rural areas what we have to look for are the technologies that adapt to the needs as Aminata said there are sites that we have to see that do not have any energy which are the most basic services that we have to take technology and this is what we have to do another point is the optical fiber is the answer to years of band that we need to offer a good service but also the optical fiber has very high costs for rural areas and not only high costs but the times that are required to deploy it thinking about complicated geographies as I told you that it has Peru so here we have to think in satellite solutions or another type of HAPS solutions where we can somehow connect rural areas of the country but at a low cost there is where the other challenge that emerging technologies have is to make them at a low cost but for rural areas where there are low income and the density of the population is very low we would not have the way to make sustainable these deployments another of the points that I think of emerging technologies is that they must seek to be as open and flexible as possible we need integration and interoperability and we must take into account that the platforms have to be managed very well thank you thank you very much that's very valuable we're coming to the till-end of this very insightful session and the last question and if you can just be very quick one is what will be your vision on emerging technologies for connectivity in the next 20 years and why if you can be very brief and to append to that a takeaway, a keyword one sentence that fits this session topic if you can merge both of them as your final comment I will go with Aminata thank you very much Ambassador Ka it's a difficult question but I will say maybe the vision of emerging technology for me is that it's actually really helped people to do to advance in the vision they have so in the countries must have their own vision and the emerging technology will be a very useful tool which make them achieve this objective very efficiently that will be my vision and the way will be that the emerging technology will be used in a really how can I say it design way so that it's not a copy and paste from a country to the LDCs but design for LDCs for the need of LDCs and so that really this development will be and digital transformation will be achieved quickly back to you thank you very much Ted can you quickly Mr yeah from my perspective in two words universally unique in the sense that I hope that it is universally accessible to everyone around the world no matter their income or background but unique in the sense that everyone is able to have a unique experience fit to their life and their background and their perspective that is adaptable to them and to their needs as well that is my hope for technology thank you very much and Teresa just a second very quickly for me the emerging technology is the way the sustainable model for the digital inclusion of the non-connected and a call for action of the different actors society government, academy and private more than now especially in COVID-19 where the relevance and importance of the rural connectivity for the lives of the people thank you very much thank you panelists this has been quite fascinating and insightful very thoughtful I'm sure we could have gone over and over and I thank the interpreters for staying on just to wrap up the session I will say digital platforms and services will be a mirage for least developing countries without solving the last mile and broadband connectivity challenges it is very urgent that infrastructure priority to facilitate realizing the potential emerging technologies avail to least developing countries the potential of scaling the adoption and impact of the benefits of trends of emerging technologies for connectivity has challenges of deployment of scalable sustainable and impactful projects lack of adequate skills and appropriate competencies sustainable investment support and policy regime limitations which must be overcome and one way to accelerate from the presenters is the adoption of trends of emerging technologies for connectivity and digitalization is to promote the growth of market creating innovations including frugal innovations for connectivity where technologies systems and processes frugal and otherwise for reliable and adequate broadband connectivity deployed especially for rural communities to make services that are affordable for millions of potential consumers and producers of services who otherwise could not afford the services and connectivity due to high cost inaccessibility and other aspects to achieve this we need to build the connectivity infrastructure through efficient collaborations and partnerships disrupt policy regimes and innovative and pragmatic strategies and make them smarter and enhance access in rural communities and reduce the cost of connectivity especially in the last miles that's what I could encapsulate from the very insightful presentations that these very very thoughtful technologies I must say have done justice to our topic today and I congratulate all of you and we look forward to you joining us in the upcoming session the presentations will be shared including the opening remarks we thank you and you have a wonderful day and interpreters we thank you very much for your patients thank you and excellencies and ladies and gentlemen thank you very much thank you all thank you bye bye bye thank you bye bye for everyone merci beaucoup