 Sultansi Company. He is an internet pioneer who co-founded the first licensed internet service provider in Hong Kong and leads the Belt and God Blockchain Consortium. So previously, Pindar also served on the Hong Kong Government Committee on Innovation, Technology and Industrialization, and he has held many, many other leadership position. So I will just stop here and then give the floor to Pindar who will tell us today about the branching. Pindar, the floor is yours. Thank you so much Amanata for this kind introduction and thank you and apologies for being a few minutes late. As mentioned, we have a very big task of us today, which is to set the scene in some sense for a very eventful week ahead. And why do we just get stuck in? So what I'm gonna do is just walk through and if I could have the staff advance the slide to the next slide, by next. That would be great. Next slide please. So with this spotlight keynote, I would like to thank, sorry, Hulan Zhao, the Secretary General, obviously the staff and wonderful translators that we have for the week ahead, which will be extremely interesting. Could we have the previous slide one up before that? Yeah, and so what I thought we would do is in the spotlight is to set the, to think bigger thoughts in some sense to dream bigger dreams. If only to help set the tone for what will be the themes for not only today but for the rest of the week. Next slide please. Now what I originally wanted to do was to talk about sort of the great big debate over the last three, four years with what technical discussions within the ITU about the new internet protocol as being promulgated via the ITU and also the quick protocols in some sense, the internet engineering task force vision as originally proposed by Google in fact. And as was mentioned in the keynote, it's not clear to me that this giant tussle is actually symptomatic of the internet itself being disrupted. As you know, a lot of techniques and industries are now moving onto the internet and the internet itself was the big disruptor over the last 20 years. But there's some very interesting developments for example, the Bitcoin or blockchain protocols which have a fundamentally different architecture and it's not clear to me that the future is just a selection between these two protocols new internet IP or the quick protocol. In last month's keynote that I gave at the AFS Star African Internet Summit, there was a comment that actually disturbed me which was this whole notion of having an embedded assumption in your mind which you weren't really aware of. And that really is really why I wanna talk about brain chains today and not really the difference between new IP and the quick protocol. So next slide please. Now the reason why it disturbed me was obviously when we were thinking about the internet development in Africa over the last 20 years and the next 20 years, it seems to me that there seems to be the set of assumptions that somehow invisibly limits or confines or restricts the freedom of your thinking. And that was a comment that was made in my session and it really disturbed me. And so today's sort of focus and spotlight is in some sense to try and unpack that this brain chain that was what my term for this phenomenon of in some sense, these hidden assumptions. So I'm gonna be using two examples, the internet as the first one and Bitcoin protocols as the second to illustrate really that we should be very sensitive to these brain chains and surface them as soon as we can. Next slide please. So as you know, the chain is a series of links and to break a brain chain, you're trying to find the weakest link in some sense the weakest part of the series of assumptions. And so today again, using these two examples, let's try and surface what is a brain chain by using some examples and seeing how we can break them. Next slide. So as was mentioned, we have LDCs, LLDCs and SIDs. And to be honest, I wasn't actually sure what these meant. So obviously I'm trying to go and lead into the poll next if we can have the next slide. And what I would like to know is where are you from? What's in a name for these least developed economies or landlocked developing countries or small island developing states? If you're from any one of these, choose one, two or three in the poll or if you're from none of them, please choose item number four. So could we run the first poll? Yes, please, I will do it in a minute. I have a small issue here. Sorry about that. No problem. And what I'm basically trying to find is where is everyone? Okay, thank you, the poll is not quite there. But what I'm trying to figure out is we have 100 or so people on this video conference and the whole theme of the week is LDCs, LLDCs and SIDs, small island developing states. So I want to actually try and figure out where everyone's from, when we can get the poll running. Okay, so here we can have where are you from? Well, are you from a least developed country? Are you from a landlocked developing country? Are you from a small island developing state or none of the above? If you could just choose one of those and press the submit button, let's just see where everyone is from and we'll bring the results up once the results come in. The point I'm trying to illustrate though is in what's in the name is, do you accept this framing? And this framing for LDCs, LLDCs and SIDs is gonna be persistent for the rest of the week. And to me, it was in some sense the first example of a potential brain chain, primarily because, and I'll go through it in a moment, there is some assumptions with the naming of this. And I'm not sure, given my experience with the African internet summit that I entirely agree with both the terminology and all the framing. Next slide, please. And we can show the results from the poll whenever they're ready. We have 54% voted. Okay, let's just wait for a few more minutes. The reason why I don't accept this is because of some of the words that sort of trigger me based on last month's discussion of the internet development in Africa. These are words like small, least, island, landlocked. I mean, they're implicit in the terms of the definitions, but I would argue that we may not necessarily need to use this geographic or size-based framing. Next slide, please. In some sense, I think we should really get rid of it. Now, what COVID-19 has taught us is this disease which has spread globally has in some sense divided us and conquered us, but at the same time, we have our own way of having these so-called lockdowns to also divide and conquer the disease itself. More importantly, next slide, please. The ITU and the way that this conference has been framed is really from obviously the ITU nation-state viewpoint, the 193, 194 members of the ITU and members of the United Nations. This has an implicit assumption of nation-state actors. In other words, if you were to be a member of the ITU, I mean, nation-states as a treaty organization, you are then obviously welcome and it has been succeeding as a framework for 130 plus years. The last 20 years, though, in terms of the networks, a network like the internet that doesn't see borders, there is a, I think, an implicit tension now between the nation-state view and I would say the global network view. Next slide, please. So COVID-19 talked, in some sense, about the, you know, many of us who don't have to go to a factory, we can just work from home. And in other words, the importance of the network is now paramount, especially in the COVID-19 era. And so, as I said earlier, I would like to use two examples of trying to surface brain trains through two famous networks. The first is the rise of the stupid network, the first is the rise of the stupid network, something that I was involved with in the early 1990s, which was actually the rise of the internet itself. Next slide. So here's an example of the internet, as it was in 1973, it's gone from this research network with a minimum small number of nodes to now this massive global network with 80,000 different networks, which will participate to form it. And the current view is through evolution of protocols like Qwik or new IP, that the internet is not just a network, that this network of networks will continue to expand. Next slide. Now, time does not permit me to go into, but I would highly recommend you look at this wonderful essay called The Rise of the Stupid Network by the AT&T senior researcher, called Dave Eisenberg, at the very beginning of the commercialization of the internet. Now, this was from the perspective of the person who was deeply involved with the phone network, an international voice, such as IDD, in other words, the domain of the ITU. And in this essay, and this famous essay of The Rise of the Stupid Network, several of the assumptions of the phone network were in fact put completely upside down. And he basically highlighted that. And I would encourage you to read it when you can. Next slide, please. So in the old days, we had this five ESS voice switch. The network was very smart and we used to collect these very dumb black phones to the network. There wasn't any computing power on the edge of the network. It was all inside the core of the network with these very smart electronic voice switches. Now, as has been said elsewhere, the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones. We in fact had a different kind of architecture which was completely different, which was not a smart network. In fact, it was a stupid network. Next slide, please. Now, the stupid network was very different. It didn't have any real intelligence in the core of the network. In fact, the intelligence was pushed out to the edge of the network. The network itself was stupid. It was a dumb network. And the edge devices that connected had all the computing power. And this in fact was perfect for the evolution of the semiconductor boom over the last 20 odd years and the change of the network attaching methodology. And that this is the network that we know today. So this is kind of ironic that you would do something which was take the intelligence out of the network, put it to the edge of the network, as in the case of the internet and this different internet architecture, this different set of assumptions, in fact changed everything. Next slide. And what it changed with the internet is once you take the intelligence out to the edge of the network, you could tinker at the edge and you wouldn't have to rip out the core and upgrade the core. And many of the famous internet companies now, the social media companies and the platform companies exploited that. And it was a great period of permissionless innovation, primarily because you didn't have to upgrade the whole network. You could just upgrade the edges and the applications on that as you saw fit. Next slide, please. But the internet is a global network. It's not an international network. And what I mean by that, I wanna go through because this is again, in some sense, the first brain train. If you can just think about what is different between what is a global network and what is international network. Next slide. And the key thing here is to notice that we're not talking between nations, between nation-state actors. So obviously the ITU is framed in those terms and that's one of my chief concerns today is again, moving away from this international only viewpoint, but yet a network that is still global. Next slide, please. And so if we just look at this change in world view, this change of world from just only having nation-state actors and the genesis of where this Westphalian view came from, which was in the 30 years of war from 1648, this seems to be an impressive assumption at least it's worked very well for the last few hundred years. But then the internet is a global network but doesn't rely explicitly on nation-state actors. Next slide, please. So what the internet taught us was that geography is forever in a sense. You can't divorce your neighbors. Countries are next to each other. But when we have the internet, everyone now is your neighbor. And that changes in some sense how we view things. Next slide, please. And the potential as we know from the headlines with internet ransomware and hacking and hacking incidents and security incidents that now when everyone is potentially your neighbor on the internet, we also have the downside that potentially everywhere is a bad neighborhood. Next slide, please. Now, Jeff Houston is no stranger to the ITU and there are two papers again as part of the homework exercise that I would encourage you to read. And that is some concern. And I share Jeff's concern that the internet as we know it today is potentially failing. So here's one view. And if we go to the next slide, please. Here's another one that the internet is actually rotting and this is by a Harvard professor. We don't have time to go into that but there is some concern right now. The internet itself is not that there's a question mark over the internet that in some sense to connect to the internet given all the security issues, there is a careful calculation that needs to be made. It's no longer that connecting to the internet is good. Connect to the internet may actually have quite a big downside. And that leaves the opportunity for considering other forms. Next slide, please. We can also see that the network itself has evolved to be a very, very surveilled network. And we have these social platforms that does all the surveillance. This was again, not necessarily a foreseen forecast, but that is the way things have evolved. So what I wanna do, I think we're running a little bit out of time is really to get to the crux of the matter. So I want to skip forward to the slides. Actually, let's leave the slides as they are here. Actually, the next slide is good. Which is, with the nation state view, we have this rule of law within nation states. We also have this chief problem which we've been dealing with with internet governance for the last 20 years, which is all laws have borders. So the examples of brain chains to go through and to highlight was that the internet, there was a fundamental assumption and that assumption was distance equals cost. And old networks such as the international direct dial network had the accounting rate settlement assumption. And with that, that governed the world of the telephone network. When we have a different architecture like the internet architecture where distance did not equal cost. If you understood that that was the first chain that you didn't have to, that you could break that distance did not equal cost, then you would have made them a lot of money out of the internet era. There are other examples as we wrap up in the next few minutes. The second one is, in some sense, the Bitcoin protocol. The Bitcoin protocol is not a, it's not only, it doesn't only run on this stupid network, the internet. It coordinates every 10 minutes with these blocks that are produced. So it's a very slow network. And so the irony here is when you have something that's both stupid and slow, that's not normally a recipe for success, but it does lead to some very, very interesting properties. And in the latest slides, which you can go through after the call, I would go through two examples of this slow network. The slow network itself, where you have, in some sense, the assumption here is that time is money and Bitcoin is example of that data equals money. But more importantly, that by relaxing some of the constraints of decentralized systems, we can have massive replication from not just replicating a few tens of nodes, but on the Bitcoin network, for example, about 100,000 nodes. So the summary here is that the small island that I see or the landlock island that I see is in fact, between my ears. What I mean by that is I think there is a third way. I think there is not necessarily a binary choice between new IP or the quick protocols. I think if you accept these terms of being least developed or small island or landlocked, it doesn't really resonate with the challenges ahead, which is the opportunity to lead. And so what I would like to encourage us all is listen very carefully over the next few days about the developments in space and development 5G, the development in decentralized identifiers and try to surface what are the hidden assumptions? What are the brain chains, if any? Because I think the risk here is to accept the discussions as presented and they're not necessarily maybe relevant to your local context. Thank you very much. Please let me show the polls, the results. We have 81 persons who voted. Let's see who everyone is from. Right, wonderful. So many were from again, if you accept this definition of least developed country or developing country, then again, that is actually most people are actually from none of the above. So that's pretty good if you accept that. So what I encourage you is to reach out over email, please do share the slides after there's pretty self-explanatory. But the point here is if there are any chains of assumptions, let's surface those as soon as possible because accepting the argument as given is probably the biggest mistake you can make. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Pinda, for this presentation. We are running out of time, but maybe I can allow one question if we do have in the audience quickly before handing to the next moderator. Otherwise, the slides are uploaded on the website already so you can download them. And then they are shared in the chat here. I will now, because I don't see any hand, I will hand over to the next session. We are late a little bit. I apologize to the moderator. So I will hand over to Mr. Sherman Hong who is saying your advisor digital impact alliance for the next session, which is entitled Scalable e-government solutions for developing countries. Thank you so much. And then after this session, we will have a session at 2 p.m., which is the opening ceremony. I welcome you all for these sessions. Thank you, Pinda, again. And then if we have any other questions in the chat, I will be sure to forward them to you. Bye. Mr. Sherman, the floor is yours. Hello, everybody. Thank you very much. I would like to pass to the head of European office at ITU, Mr. Galsdorf-Bonder, for the opening. Thank you very much, Sherman. And good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is a great starting of the week with this event. So good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on the part of the words you are connecting from. I'm pleased to welcome you at this special session on the scalable government solutions for developing countries that is held within the framework of this emerging technology for connectivity, a special event. Ladies and gentlemen, digital government services are vital for developing a digital economy and that benefits also its citizens by expanding access to critical services, such as health, education and social protection. Countries are seeking to achieve the SDGs in the next 10 years, and they are increasingly looking to national digital strategies and the agendas to transform the way they do the business and improve the lives of the citizens. More importantly, however, they are looking towards the concrete solutions that may address their needs. And the example of the GovStack is one of them. So that's why welcome to this special session which will provide more detail on this offering. This has never been more true during the times of the COVID-19, putting several constraints to the traditional offline government services. Therefore, there is a need to act, particularly in LLDCs and seeds that face challenges in terms of infrastructure and the capacity to implement such services. ITU estimates that 430 billion US dollars are needed over the next 10 years to bridge the gap and to get everyone in the world connected. And we have still over 3.7 billion people offline. A part of this much needed investment must be aimed at engaging citizens online and offer meaningful ways to connect and benefit of the government services. Ladies and gentlemen, and the GovStack Initiative seeks to tackle the barriers and to implementation and scale up of government services within the countries. Current challenges to digital government include lack of coordination and the habit of working in silos, funding constraints, absence of scalable solutions, all posing significance constraints and to digital transformation in government, increasing costs and inefficience and often leading to inaction. A whole of government platform approach to developing government services through the reuse and minimal customization of quick and easy to adapt to building blocks is at the heart of the success of digital government services projects. Open source models for the government platform that is built from modular and reusable components, leveraging a secure and standards-based approach are an optimal solution to solving these issues in a cost efficient and scalable manner. And this is what we consider as an emerging technology and emerging new paradigm which many best practices across the words and that can be replicated in developing countries as well as LLDs and seeds. Ladies and gentlemen, today, you will hear more about this initiative and the concrete next steps that are on the horizon. I'm very pleased to recognize that the partnership forged by two countries in Europe, Estonia and Germany, which have joined the forces with the Digital Impact Alliance and the ITU in October last year to bring this project to light. As we proceed towards the implementation over the next two, three years, we can expect a significant impact for beneficiary countries and the outcomes of today's discussions will be an important step forwards towards this goal. And let me also remind that this initiative has also be originated by European countries within the framework of the working as part of the Europe for Europe approach as well as Europe for the other regions. This is a significant contribution to our ITU regional initiative for Europe focusing on the citizen-centric approach to build services for national administrations that seeks to facilitate the development of transformative and paperless citizen-centric services that are accessible and available to all members of society. Ladies and gentlemen, before I conclude, let me thank Estonia, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and the Digital Impact Alliance for the work carried out so far and for continuous support to this initiative. Let me also thank the European Commission that is taking a closer look and has potential for scaling up growth stock across the world. ITU stands ready to contribute and support this important process. With that said, I would like to thank once again and to all those who are with us today and wish you a great session and the event throughout the week. Without further ado, I would like to introduce our distinguished speakers, including Mr. Sherman Kong, Senior Advisor at the Digital Impact Alliance and at the UN Foundation who will be moderator of this session. I have also a great pleasure to introduce my colleague, Hania Skandar, Senior Advisor, Digital Services, the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the ITU, Sarah and Teresa Fischer, Consultant of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationalen Zusammenarbeit and GIZ of Germany, as well as Martin Kavett, National Digital Advisor of the Government Office of Estonia. This session will take a look at the following proceeding. We'll introduce, we'll provide the brief introductions and opening statements by the speakers. We'll have the panel discussion and as well as we'll have more interactive parts with the polls and Q&A's. But without further ado, let me hand over to Sherman Kong to chair this session. And before doing so, I would like to also invite our IT Moderator to provide a few announcements and that we know how to proceed with the session. Thank you. Hello, thank you so much. Just a second. Dear participants, thank you for joining. Before starting, okay. We don't see me? We don't see me. We... Okay, here we go. Dear participants, thank you for joining. Before starting the meeting, I would like to give you some instructions on the Zoom platform and the meeting itself. This meeting is entirely remote. The audience is kindly asked to keep their camera and microphone switched off to minimize bandwidth apart from where taking the floor. Please rename yourselves and add the represented member states, sector member or academia before your name. To do so, please right-click on your name in the list of participants. The moderator of each session will recognize the speakers and will give you the floor when the turn comes. Everybody I invited to use the chat for any questions or comments. Moderators will be monitoring and any comment may be read out if time allows. You can view and activate the captioning by clicking on Live Transcript at the bottom bar of the Zoom interface. The meeting also benefits of six UN languages interpretation. Please select your preferred language from the bottom bar of the Zoom interface. Dear participants, please note that when using headphones with Bluetooth interpreters are not able to hear properly, kindly use headsets with USB connection. The meeting is being recorded and the recording will be used for report writing and communication purposes. Every fort is being made to facilitate the smooth flow of this meeting. Thank you for your cooperation and I wish you a good meeting. Is that a cue for me to intervene now? Okay, hello everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, member state delegations and other ministerial officials, partners, colleagues and friends. As Yalstof introduced, we are wanting to talking about scalability in the government solutions for countries, especially in your context and a newly established partnership across the four agencies that are represented by the speakers here today. This is a kind of an, you know, in the context of the emerging theme of this week, we would like to introduce basically a practice or model that we have been observed in advanced digital governance contexts and we want to introduce this concept to you and the work that we're marking on since the end of 2020 and how we would like for you all to engage and to see that there is continue effort and technical support provided to member states represented here today in the audience. Next please. Next please. So what we have been noticing in terms of countries that have been recognized for advanced digital governance is this kind of model that's been converging and we've seen this in our review and in discussions with countries and it's recognizing government as a singular platform for citizens. And you might have seen this diagram in literatures, in other contexts and in other debates or discussions, it might vary but the notion behind this is that there is a shared digital service infrastructure in place that is facilitated and operated by government in a more cross-sectoral whole of government approach manner. And however you divide it, there are some fundamental elements that we've seen that leading countries are practicing. So it's around developing and maintaining and operating these foundational elements within the infrastructural context of digital government services. So in some countries you see generic components being stood up that can facilitate services and needs across different agencies and as well as other government branches at large such as digital ID, authentication, seen cases of unified payment interfaces or gateways and then common applications that are built on top of it contextualized for different agency needs. So it moves away from the traditional sense of disparate solutions that has been deployed by different agencies or as siloed or limited by lack of funding or lack of demands or needs and it moves towards a more centralized shared approach where agencies describe and express digital needs that are common across and to aggregate and to build together in this more centralized way. Next please. And you've seen cases like this and you will hear today very fortunately a representation from Estonia in terms of how they've done this kind of work or approach. But in a sense, there are some illustrative examples that we have seen in the context of Estonia or in other countries as well. This happens geographically very variance across the variance of geographic boundaries of countries recognizing or government recognizing these generic components that needs to be deployed in order to facilitate sectoral needs but using a more shared approach. So in the case of Estonia, you see this notion of building blocks around a singular identity interoperable service layers that can connect different components or agency in a context or blocks so speak and some other digital components that underlie the digital government services for structure itself. Next and similarly to the case of India we've heard of the success of the digital ID around Adhar and moving towards the notion of this India stack where there's the digital ID component in place connected with other generic digital building blocks around unified payment schemes around e-signatures and so on that help to build this fundamental working layer where then you have different sectoral services that are built on top of it and this fully facilitates a lot of digital government needs and it makes for easier scalability and in the case of India especially looking into the financial inclusion context that this had really kind of accelerate the delivery of services in that regard. And you can see that there's a list of generic building block elements that are kind of enshrined in the agile India enterprise architectural approach in the government documents itself. Next and lastly case of Singapore as well and they've also emulated stack approach where there are fundamental generic layers that are built underneath which services different sectoral components and connecting with citizens in more of a one government or one platform approach. Next. So across these different leading examples we've empirically abstract what are the core elements that are technologically informing the design of this and this is really as you have seen the term already a generic reusable sets of building blocks that form this underlying layer where the different high impact use cases can be built on top and multiple SDGs and rapidly be effectively impacted or delivered and it leads to more efficient scalability it leads to more cost optimization as well as you will see in a few minutes. Next. And so we in this partnership that Yaroslav mentioned label GovStack we've started to look into these fundamental building blocks if you will that forms this underlying general digital services platform. And the characteristics of them are that they are reusable, that they are pro sectoral that they serves fundamental generic processes. There is no kind of a sectoral only focus in this because if you look on the right a library of building blocks that we have identified so far payments identity, security, information, mediation and all the other components that we have identified and in leading country examples in terms of digital governance. These are fundamental blocks that they that they've developed and maintained and combinations facilitate the delivery of services much more rapidly. Next. And it's, I mentioned there are there's it's not just good practice in terms of efficiency and scalability in the context of what we're talking about today in terms of scalability government solutions but it's has good business sense as well because we have seen real demonstrable economic values or cost savings that countries have enjoyed. We've seen research done by JSMA on the case of India or Australia where there is tangible cost saving in terms of providing shared infrastructures to different agency services and real economic values if there's a more whole of government approach in terms of providing digital services and cost optimization as well in our discussions with Saudi Arabia. So both in terms of providing shared services in order to optimize costs or in terms of facilitating a faster delivery of services in order to generate real economic growth has been observed by our studies as well so far. Next. So then touching on the initiative that has been introduced in the beginning. Next. What Gaustik really is aiming to do as a partnership and as an initiative is really to help empirically abstract and demystify these kinds of approaches. We've seen commonalities across the cases of Stonia, India, Singapore and so on on what kind of generic digital components that they're focused on developing as part of the foundational elements or core engine that drives digital government services. So what we as a partnership or initiative aims to do is really to unpack this technical approach and make the case for more reusable, comprehensible references for countries represented by audience today as well as other advanced member states to model against, to learn from this and to be able to start moving their digital government service portfolios towards an approach like this so that they can also accelerate their own e-government services or e-government implementations. So the model itself is really an extrapolation of what has proven to have worked already in countries. And this is something that we have observed as an emerging trend that advanced digital government states have converges towards. And it's a little bit of background, ITU and the Digital Impact Alliance had worked on this initial and publish a logical model behind this called the SDG Digital Investment Framework. So the GUSTEK initiative really is an extension of informing the technical notions behind this. And you will see on one of the outputs that we're aiming to achieve is really informing the technical design of these building block components that I've touched on earlier. So as I mentioned, it was brought on by four founding partners, ITU, Dial, and the government of Germany and Stonia as well. And we aim to work on this in a very collaborative manner. And with that, next, I would like to kind of call on the different agencies represented by the speaking panel here today now to talk about their rationalization motivation behind why we are part of this government GUSTEK initiative as well as taking a step back on some of the challenges and opportunities and leading samples in terms of how e-governed solutions have been scaled. And so to that extent, I'd like to kind of frame our opening statements around the three key themes here. So I would like to first call on ITU representative, Mr. Hania Skander, around how we want, how we've aimed to accelerate initial digital government services in the context of a model as such, Hania, for sure. Okay, thanks very much, Sherman. And good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Actually, just to build on what Sherman has been saying about ITU interest to be part of this initiative is really dated back to many years where we've been seeing continuous increasing in demand in terms of digitalization. And I think this has been even accelerated recently by the push from COVID, where it's becoming evident that digitalization is very essential to... Julianne is on what's going on. Which really proved that digitalization is essential to ensure business continuity. Now, with this increased demand on digitalization, there will be also increased investments. And if those investments are not well managed, this can lead indeed to increasing the difficulty to manage your digital resources and digital assets because this is what we have seen previously that there are a lot of duplication, a lot of fragmentation, a lot of siloing. So we felt that we need to adopt business as usual, cannot continue and we need to adopt a slightly different approach in terms of managing. This is that investment. And that's why a few years back, indeed the ITU work was dialed to think through how can we have an approach to make a digital investment that can be done once, but serve so many different sectors and so many different use cases. And this will have huge implication in terms of increasing the efficiency, improving cost efficiency, but also accelerating and increasing the speed of delivering new services. And this is the basis for which we have developed this SDG digital investment framework, which is really based on a number of the concept of reusable building blocks. Now from ITU perspective, it's extremely important now that we work with countries on how they can adopt what you can call those types of architectural approaches and how they can really put in place what you can consider as a digital public infrastructure. Actually, this concept, digital public infrastructure is an emerging concept and I think that's why we are bringing it to the emerging technology. It's been now used by so many different organizations to explain a little bit that while we usually tended to think of infrastructure in terms of connectivity, in terms of cables and internet and all of that, when you look at the service layer, there is also the concept of what you can call a digital service infrastructure, meaning that there are some components, there are some capabilities, there are some shared services that are, they need to be so ubiquitous, so present, they can sit on top of internet and they are available to hold the government and as mentioned, this can have huge implication. For rich countries, like European countries and some of the Asian countries, but also if you look at it from the LDC and since perspective, you cannot by no mean afford to have these types of duplication, which is happening so far. So this concept of digital public infrastructure, this service kind of platform is not an option anymore and you cannot adopt the business as usual. From the ITU perspective, we are really focusing now on building country capacities so that countries can on their own lead this establishment of this types of infrastructure and really being able to make those investments and make some good decisions in terms of investments and put in place those types of foundations that will enable reusability, but also interoperability and they are secure by design and they can really accelerate the whole digitalization. So we looked at it from an ITU perspective in terms of how we facilitate and bridge this knowledge transfer. Countries are looking to some of the countries like India, like Singapore, like Estonia, like so many other countries who have gone very far in terms of digitalization and really looking on how they can start from where the other ended actually, instead of repeating the same mistakes and reinventing the wheel. And really the objective of this joint initiative, which we call GAFSTAC, is really to bridge this knowledge gap, is to say how can we make available some, what you can call digital public goods, meaning how can we make some digital resources available and open and accessible to everyone on how you can go about building your digital government platform and put in place these types of foundations that we are talking about. Of course, we all know that there are different approaches for capacity development, like the classical traditional training, whether it's remote or face-to-face, et cetera. And we all know that while this is extremely important, it's not enough. And you need to go one or two or even three steps ahead in order to bridge this gap. So one of the things is that we have adopted and this is why ITU is really part of this is to say, let's adopt the different type of approaches by learning by doing and learning by example. So in that sense, this is how we approach it is to say, let's try to provide a digital public good, meaning an open digital government platform that is implemented as a model or as an example, or you can call it a reference implementation or off a digital government platform. You can think about it more or less as a mini, digital government platform of Estonia or India or other types of countries and how you can apply all the principles and concepts of standard based approaches, secure by design, protecting privacy, ensuring the citizen consent, enabling interoperability, how you create, use open APIs, how you adopt all the new trends in scaling up digital services like adopting microservices, et cetera. So there are a lot of things that we would like to bring and make available as a demo platform where countries can come and learn and play with it and learn and experiment and even build services on top of it and see how those types of principles could be implemented in reality. So the way we approach that is to say, okay, let's make available those new digital public goods, DPGs, let's really make sure that the model platform or the example platform is really built based on best practices from a number of countries. And we use this as a resource for knowledge transfer and making sure that we give more and more ownership for governments to see themselves and can implement similar types of platforms in their own countries. So the whole idea is that this type of open accessible resources will help countries, first of all, of course, to learn but also potentially to replicate this in a way or another in their countries and how can this also can inform procurement processes because we all know that procurement is something that is always a challenge in order how you can procure those types of solutions that goes beyond the one specific solution scope or beyond even one department or one agency. And you make these types of whole of government type of infrastructure available. So we do hope that those types of DPGs, digital public goods, we really accelerate this process of knowledge transfer and give more ownership and give the leadership for countries so that they can take ownership and really lead the development of their own digital foundation and really enable their governments to be forward-looking and to be ready for the future. Thank you. Thank you, Anias. As Hani rightfully mentioned, this is really to support country capacity and one way that we're trying to do so in terms of the partnership we have established here today, it's really to align others around the notion that this could be a way forward and it requires not only us developing these kinds of references and help inform the model but it also requires a level ecosystem alignment. So in terms of building partnerships for others to come along the ride, I would like to now invite Sarah Fisher from GIZ for her opening statement. Excuse me, I didn't hear you, sorry. Dear Mr. Skander, can you repeat the last phrase? Oh, you're waiting for the presentation, right? Yeah, sorry. I think we need to unmute Sarah. Okay, she's on mute. I think it should be working all right. Sorry, I couldn't unmute myself because I think that needs to be done by the host but I'm hopeful that everyone can hear me now, perfect. Thank you very much, Sherman. And also let me start by saying it's great honor to join today's panel on Scalable E-Government Solution alongside our partners in crime here from the Gustach Initiative, Sherman Honey, Martin Yaroslav, I'm happy to be here. And I can just say from GIZ side, from the German Development side, digitization or the digital transformation has become a key priority over the last years because we really see it as a useful tool and helpful tool to address global challenges, to promote sustainable development and thus hopefully create better access to services and solutions for all of us. And as Sherman and also Honey pointed out, I think especially the last year and COVID has shown us yet again, what tremendous role digital technologies can play not only in fighting a global pandemic in the end, but also in keeping communication flowing and keeping services accessible. And really I guess have we been made so aware of how much our faith also depends on science, on digital innovation as we have been in the last year. And since the start of the pandemic, we also have faced an increased demand from our partner countries to support on national digital transformation, on strategies, but also on the use of data, for example. And I think countries across the globe have recognized the significant potential that digitization holds for, yeah, to weather the disruptions that the pandemic hold and bought, but also to inform and to better build government services and infrastructures and thereby keep access for citizens open in that sense. And what we see at the moment is that numerous citizen services and public administration processes, such as say contract awards, patient files, agricultural market systems, but also building of health systems cause an enormous volume of administrative IT work and order for these processes to work also more smoothly. I think we highly depend on reliant IT systems on reliant solutions to process this kind of information also in an efficient manner. And I think this is where the GUSDAQ collaboration and the GUSDAQ initiative will truly power digital transformation and give governments a good chance to build and deploy digital services and applications in a more cost efficient and accelerated and most also integrated manner. And the GUSDAQ approach or also what we call ICT building blocks, digital building blocks, thereby can definitely help governments to easily get their own digital platforms and systems. And I think we're getting to sketch out for building blocks at the moment, such as payment or ID. Shemin also gave a bit of an overview earlier on what concrete building blocks we're engaging in, but I think there is a great progress being made at the moment. And I think this is a great initiative to contribute to not only to the smart development goals as well in the end, but also to make government actions more transparent, more participatory and offer citizens really the administrative services that they need in their local context. Over the last years, we also witnessed that more and more donors, as Hani pointed out as well, support the development of digital infrastructure. There is a growing interest in investing in this field, but we also see that these investments are still often duplicated, they're fragmented, and thereby they're not really often scalable or sustainable in the end. And I think this is also where we see a great chance at the moment to align efforts. I think it's a great time to rethink a little bit. Also, the funding structures behind digital public infrastructures to align efforts and to work jointly on this very ambitious agenda for international cooperation on good digital public infrastructures. Because this is also the time where we can decide and influence what kind of digital public goods we're going to build and to make them good, meaning also secure and as resilient as possible. Yeah, I think that has been mentioned as well already, but we often operate when it comes to also investment into digital public goods, still in silos, so in different sectors. And especially now it's really important to address these parts of digitalization jointly because there are overacking mechanisms that can be used also in different sectors and thereby also give us the chance to basically maximize the return of invest also when it comes to that. And I'm pretty sure that better coordinating investments in DPIs and DPGs really gives us an opportunity to overcome these silos. There has been major interest and a great lot of work also done by other partners in this field, for example, also the Melinda Gates Foundation who are also gathering around the similar effort. There is a group of donors also at the moment establishing or discussing the idea of establishing a global fund to support partner governments, talking also about Gates, not about KFW. So there is a lot going on at the moment. There are a lot of discussions and I think that a crucial point at the moment to align donors' perspectives a little bit more around digital public goods as well. And I think not only COVID showed us now that, yeah, it's important for us to collaborate on this manner, it's important for us to cooperate on developing good digital government solutions that help us in the end also build solutions that are inclusive, that are secure, that also protect privacy and in the end also support human rights when it comes to that. And yeah, we are very happy to be part of the GUSTAG Initiative, I can say, from the German side, I think it's great to further develop this global community that we already started and I also warmly invite everyone to join us on this journey. I think we're always welcoming technical expertise in our working groups and yeah, we really want to make this also a global approach. So yeah, I'm glad to be here today and thank you so far. Back to Sherman, I guess. Thank you, Sarah. I think what other donors are realizing as well is we are really providing a generic model where collaboration and alignment can happen. So in the context of what Sarah mentioned, the GUSTAG model itself or what we're trying to extrapolate from successful leading country examples is that it's not really no favoring or exclusively looking at one specific sectoral needs or one specific kind of sets of products or goods available but also a more generic approach or framework where there's an understanding that these building blocks or foundational pieces tie into the scalability of a more national focused digital government strategy in countries we've seen and certainly we would like to see or support or assist LDCs and LDCs in this regard as well. So going back to Hani's perspective a little bit in terms of accelerating country capacity and always transfer one very good way to do this is to connect to countries and other ministries and government examples that have done this. So we're very pleased to have the representation from Estonia, Mr. Martin Kaeff to speak about this from an Estonian experience perspective of how their journey was. So the Martin, the follows, you are on your opening statement. So I hope you can hear me. I've had some bit of a technical difficulties but basically yes, for Estonia we realized something like five, four years ago that our own current governance architecture is not adaptable enough. So one of those reasons of taking a whole of government than the building block approach is about building adaptiveness within government. So the reason for this is that the problem that we are trying to solve with the building blocks and with the whole of government approach is actually not a technological problem. Digital government and digital transition is always more about the change in mindset and culture. Starting from the public sector. So in the Estonian story of starting to build a digital society in 2000 in the end of 90s basically, one of the core lessons learned is that in order to change the mindset and culture within a society and within a public sector of context and specific it's smart to change the tools people use on an everyday basis. And one of those issues I think not only in Estonia but in many other governments as well is the reason of building monolithic architecture, building this huge monster of pieces of infrastructure that are really hard to change and adapt. And as we also got stuck in legacy in certain parts and certain services then we realized that it's wiser and smarter to do this domain-driven microservice approach which basically allows enough adaptability. But again, having the lesson learned from Estonia and knowing that the tools we use changed the way we think and our goal in piloting and testing these microservices is actually much longer than just technological. It's more about the organizational culture around it and how can we build adaptive organizational governance architecture in one government. But one of the tricks that we also see is that in Estonia we actually kind of feel that we have already solved the easy questions when we regards to digital transformation meaning that yes, we have a strong working digital identity, we have a secure data exchange layer, we have data integrity all across the ecosystem. So the problems and challenges that we face are basically much harder to solve than some of these very basic components. But in order to solve these much harder problems then we also have realized that well, we are still a very, very small country and the future of government services are cross-border. So basically it's very important to try to do these things in a collaborative way across the borders because this GovStack or the microservices approach only starts to work when there is enough community of developers around it, enough of the different public sector governments, entities, authorities that actually utilize and use this toolbox. Then basically from Estonia's perspective, GovStack is essential to build our own digital government in an advanced way as well, but in order to do that, we need to do it collaboratively because otherwise we couldn't reach the critical mass of those participating countries, the developers and so on, but this kind of ambition only works at scale. So that's why we are really, really happy to work together with Germany Dial and ITU on this building blocks because it's not only about the low resource and middle resource settings, but it's also about the digitally advanced countries because I'm pretty sure that many of the different governments that are considered to be somewhat advanced in digital tools, then many of them are actually thinking about the same lines. We may talk about Singapore or Australia or New Zealand or many other governments of Finland that are deploying their whole of government approach based on microservices, but we also need to acknowledge that this is a road that takes a long time and it's more about building trust within a community so that all of these different kinds of microservices and the collaborations around the different domains may be healthcare or social welfare or unconventional cash transfer or any of the other things could be implemented and deployed. And then, of course, one other key aspect why Estonia is very, very invested in this effort is that fundamentally the next 10 to 15 years about building government services is much more about the cross-border effects. So for example, in Estonia, we have managed, well, we haven't stood in the line of a DMV or to register a car or something like that. We can do all of those things online for already 10 years, but if we could do those things for other countries as well like in other countries, then this would significantly boost the economy and make our lives better. So the future is on cross-border interoperability. It's still the key here and in order to achieve those things, we need to build trust between different stakeholders and GovStack is definitely a very, very good example of putting these different bits and pieces together and finding a common language and APIs that all of these different applications could potentially talk to each other and build trust step-by-step starting from the small, easy use cases and then collaboratively evolving into much bigger and difficult ones. So I hope my message was heard meaning that there were no big technical difficulties, but back to you Sherman basically. Thank you Martin. Good to finally have you to join. I know there's some video trouble from your end so I apologize on behalf of Estonia for the audience. Usually we see Martin walking around and this kind of connects to the notion that we have this theme in terms of connectivity. Estonia has a great example. If you meet Martin, those we know Martin, he can basically connect and speak from anywhere. He's probably in the woods somewhere right now. So thank you for having the time and the connectivity to join us today. So I think I would like to bring back all the speakers now onto the same stage for each of those speak and just have an interactive engagement and just to get your perspectives and views a little bit more. Maybe starting with the questions, going back in terms of accelerating and supporting country capacity, what has been really observable in terms of traditional challenges each of us have seen in digital government where countries are trying to engage in terms or move towards that path of digitalization of government services, but there are some challenges and barriers in terms of addressing a real scalable matter in context of scalability that we are here talking about today. So what are some really core challenges that you have observed so far? So maybe from Pani from ITU's perspective, having the vantage point of all the member states and seeing the incoming needs and requests, what can you share with us? Thanks, Chairman. Yeah, I think there are some commonalities in terms of the type of challenges that many, many countries are facing and probably they are known by now, but I think it's important to kind of revisit them just to understand what is the problem that we are trying to solve. And this is, you can see, I mean, yourself, when you go to any government department to get a service, you will see that each government agency is trying to build their own systems and the systems are, of course, are very different and of course it's very difficult to kind of make sure that the data can move from one department to the other, which ends up by having a very difficult type of experience for the end user because in many cases, they need to go to more than one department and more than one agency to get a service from end to end. The problem of having, you know, uncoordinated investments is not by any mean a trivial problem. From one side, it has implication, indeed, on having kind of a, let's say, not optimum user experience, but also it has huge implication in terms of the ability to scale and the ability to mainstream digitalization in all different services. There are hundreds and hundreds of digital services that needs to be digitized in a government and there is no way that to digitize each service you have to build this service from scratch. The ways investments are happening now, as Martin was saying, is by developing this what you can call a monolithic type of application, by monolithic we mean that it's like a big chunk of code, it's like a big system where everything is bundled in the system and there is no way to reuse small parts or small capabilities or even to access the data that is kind of captured within this application. So that's why, I mean, you have, then each agency has to duplicate its own, you know, investment and then that is, of course, no consistency. So each agency have a slightly different approach of doing things and then it wastes a lot of time. Just to give you examples, very simple example, just think of a very simple thing like consent management. Consent management is something that is emerging again in line with the emerging week kind of theme because of all the raised concern about, you know, privacy and data protection, et cetera. Currently, there are so many different ways of understanding what's consent and how you manage the consent, how you get the citizen to kind of control his own data and being able to give his approval for, you know, using his own data. He needs to know who has access to his data and he can even revoke this access if he or she wants. So consent management is a very, very, very critical small piece that is now needed to be integrated in all government services. Unless you deal with this small piece as a shared service, what will happen that each department will reinvent the wheel and they will try to rethink consent from scratch, particularly that it's an emerging area that is no like one clear cut what's consent and how you manage it. And then you would have huge waste of time, huge duplication, lack of consistency, not as mainstreamed experience for the citizen where they have to give their consent in a different manner in different, you know, services and maybe services will not have consent at all. But if you have this small piece as a shared service, as part of your service infrastructure accessible through APIs, it makes life easy for any new service to reuse this. If you take this and multiply it by 20 or 40 different services, you can imagine that each building block can have huge implication in terms of the impact. So this is part of the challenge that the way we are approaching the investment, we are approaching it not by breaking down, you know, this big, big thing that we are trying to build into small pieces and we are trying to create, you know, the small pieces that will really enable paperless, cashless, presence-less and consent-based type of services. Identity is another thing because if you don't have a way to identify people, then you will not have the opportunity to give the people the services that are entitled to. And you cannot deal with this issue of identity several times. Same for registration, registration huge. All governments need to run some sort of a registration service and what they are doing now, if you are registering a vehicle or you are registering a kind of a vessel or you are registering a farmer or a farmer, you are completely duplicating. So the whole idea, how can we think of this registration as a very abstract and generic service that can serve all those types of services that has to do somehow with registration with some sort of an approval workflow, et cetera in a way. This part of the current challenges in building digital government service, it's easy to build one or two or five services but it's very difficult to build 500 and to scale them and more even more critical to maintain them and being able to update them, et cetera. So the challenge or part of this kind of, you know, fragmentation and duplication that prevent us providing a kind of a seamless end-to-end experience for the citizen and really think of the citizen as one citizen, one government. You know, that I am the same citizen, I don't need to put my data and the data needs to flow on the back end and then I need to get a service as if it is one government. One of the challenges that now citizens are very much used to receive this type of value-added services in the online, you know, environment. You know, now you can do a lot of things online and you kind of having more and more raised expectation that governments also needs to be that responsive and, you know, provide the digital government services in the same, you know, manner which I said can really have huge implications in terms of improving quality of life but also cost saving, combatting corruption and all of those kind of things. So it's, you know, it's this kind of uncoordinated type of investments that makes it very difficult for governments also to mainstream digital into the whole economy because of, you know, that the difficulty to manage and also the level of investment that we need without having, you know, those types of approaches. So this is very, it becomes, you know, even for government who have already digitized a number of services, they still have, you know, huge number of services that still needs to be digitized and then even the services that are digitized today, they are not necessarily, you know, digitized end-to-end. What you can see in many countries that in some cases you just have like an online form that you can download and you can fill it manually. It's not, this is not like a full digitalization of services. Or that you have to, you know, you know, do part of the service online and then the rest of the service physically where you have to go again yourself. So it's not really getting the full impact or the full value proposition that digitalization can bring. And now I think that the governments have done their strategies in many, many cases. We see that there are digital transformation strategies. There are digital government strategies already formulated and developed. But one of the challenges to say, how can I implement these types of strategies in a way that is cost efficient and that it doesn't create a mess later on? And how can I also, you know, govern my, you know, digital government investments and digital government services. So this is part of, you know, the challenges that currently are facing. I think the challenge is not anymore about raising awareness or, you know, understanding the importance or critical need for, you know, those type of things. I think it's more in implementing and putting in place those types of services and scale them up. Because what happens so far is of having this inability and also lack of understanding of how I can govern, you know, these types of investments in a way that I can enable reuse across different agencies. We still, one of the challenges actually is in the governance as well. Because you see that while there are some in some cases central CIOs in governments, those CIOs don't have necessarily enough mandate or enough capability to coordinate the work with the other ministry CIOs. So there is still some improvements or some challenges that needs to be tackled within the governance of, you know, digital governments in the government space. CIO, of course, is the chief information officer. In some even countries, there is no chief architect, for example. This position even doesn't exist. There is no central unit that is managing, you know, the standardization. How can you agree on similar APIs that everyone should use, for example, to kind of enable interoperability. If you don't have those types of, you know, mechanisms in country, then you will never be able to put in place, you know, those types of architectural and those types of, you know, infrastructure, et cetera. So I think it's also about having the right, you know, coordinating agencies who have the right mandate, but also have the right skills and capacity to be able to, you know, enable this whole of government approach, which is, of course, is not very easy to do, but as we try to explain, to scale up, you cannot avoid of having, you know, it's not a luxury. It's not an optional anymore. You need to really think how can you rationalize your investment and create these types of shared service infrastructure. Thank you very much, Lani. It's a great overview in terms of some common challenges that countries face. Maybe in enlightening the audience here, we have Estonia representing, you know, advanced the Joe government and stuff. So they might have moved forward in terms of resolving some of these challenges. So Martin, if you have any intervention or can shed some light on how maybe a particular challenge you faced in Estonia in the early stage of transforming the Joe government and how the, you know, the country itself move past a particular barrier or issue. So thank you, Sherman. I think the early days of building the digital society in Estonia were very much different from those countries that might start the journey now, because this was the end of 90s, beginning of 2000s. And for example, in Estonia, making the digital identity happen, making secure data exchange actually work. Actually, these were not mainstream questions at that time. But one of those examples that I would like to bring out is for example, two, three years ago, we started actually testing this micro-service-based architecture. And one of the services we did at one of the first ones was in Estonia, when you become a father or a mother, you can have one and a half years full salary maternity or paternity leave. And in order for usually newborn mothers or newborn kids to get it, before that this particular service basically needed filling out different forms in different pages. But now with this micro-service architecture, because well anyway, the government already knows that you've just given birth. And basically you log into one site for once, just confirm to whose bank account the money should go. And basically it's a one-time thing and you get this whole one and a half years of maternity leave really easily. But the key here is that this process is not fully automated. All of the routines not yet have been automated. But what the micro-service architecture actually provides us is that we can automate all the different routines and different processes also in a later phase. So for example, if one of those processes currently seems to be complicated, leave it on alone. Do other things before. So we can have this gradual growth because the architecture by itself allows it. And another good example from Estonia that is just went live I think three, four months ago is that we are building a digital 3D twin. I believe we might have lost you, Martin. Can you hear us? It currently has a team's call or something. Let me reconnect him. Martin, are you with us now? So we'll come back to maybe the Estonian insider experience in a moment once he's reconnected. But maybe moving on, given that, you know, other countries are looking or along this journey of digital transformation now and us as a partnership looking into broadening the impact and acceleration of other people, other countries' progress, maybe calling on the speakers here. What's, you know, priority countries or regions, what kind of impact with a model or approach around the whole of government strategy or model would have and what was the rationalization behind it. Maybe with Sarah, you can help start as often in terms of, you know, why is that is focusing on this and why there is a realisation of this model that's impactful. Sherman, I think Martin is back. Yeah, just if you wanted to allow to close on the previous question. Sure. So yeah, sorry, there is some connections. I mean, a super remote place in Hiuma in an island on a holiday. But yeah, basically the whole goal is that in Estonia, we have set our own agenda so that our goal is to automate 90% of the routine bureaucracy within the next 10 years. And this type of examples like the 3D twin and the maternity leave salary are very good case studies for our country to know that we can build technology in this new kind of way, which will help us to become more adaptive as organized. I think we lost Martin again. Maybe let's let's do move on then because in the interest of time, we are a little bit behind. So Martin meanwhile, you're trying to reconnect and maybe find the nearest, you know, connectivity tower so on in the middle of an island. Sarah may be moving on then to the question earlier that I've posted around where GIZ or where we probably see this model or this kind of approach being most impactful in terms of other countries seeking to be on this journey of digital transformation. Yeah, maybe before we start looking into countries or regions that we want to implement, I think it's also important to emphasis again that I think the charm also lies a little bit in the sense that we are trying to create with Augusta global solution, right? And the global approach and basically provide a bit an approach that can be used, I guess in Berlin as much as in Kigali. And I think that is also from a German perspective very interesting because let's be honest, Germany is also not at the forefront per se when it comes to the digitalization of government services. So I think it's really a global approach that we're looking at here and one that we as well can still learn a lot from. And I think when we look a little bit on where can we look on the Gustav initiative and digital building blocks or ICT building blocks to be implemented is of course also very important to ensure that we leave no one behind that the digital infrastructure that we're talking about needs to be equitably accessible for all in the end. And I think the situation that we're currently facing is that access to digital solutions is still often limited through copyright regimes and proprietary systems. And I think when we look at the development of these building blocks at the moment, it's also crucial of course to ensure that the solutions provided to also work in low resource settings in the end. And I think that's the important point that open source solutions and scalable solutions can then play a major role in making government services more accessible in the end. And I think one of the biggest chances of course that these digital public goods hold is that they allow countries to cost efficiently build that digital public infrastructure, what has been said already to avoid that large sums are spent in development and testing solutions but actually that can make use of blueprints of best practices to develop your own digital government applications that are also localized to the local needs in the end. And when it comes to implementation and I think that was also what you, Sherman, were hinting at a little bit more on like what regions are we going to be active in right away because I think this is also from a German development agency perspective, the point where we can really contribute is when it comes to capacity building, to technical assistance and to basically closing also a little bit with knowledge and capacity gaps in that sense. We're at the moment looking at three core partners that we're going to work with first through our cooperation with Smart Africa, which is for us also a very important strategic partnerships that helps us to link to local partners but also to promote the harmonization of standards for the most important ICT building blocks and advance applicability in the end. Second, we are also working closely with the BMZ digital centers. For example, also in Rwanda and Kenya, the digital centers there hold close contact to the local ICT ministries and the local digital ecosystems as well and thereby provide us with a great framework for capacity building and technical assistance in the countries when it comes to a government solutions and the development of them and of course the capacity building mechanisms surrounding them. And last but not least, under the Rwanda of Africa initiative, we brought together over 100 key representatives from the governments of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan as partner countries and really try to develop their original approach to again ensure that it can be benefited from best practices and we can ensure a maximized return of investment there as well. And I think what will be especially helpful for us when it comes to also more the implementation part of this initiative is the sandbox environment, the reference platform that is to be built, which creates a great framework for governments to try out a little bit to make it a little bit more haptic what we're dealing with here to basically build their own use cases because in the end it's of course really about making it work for the very specific context and not footprints that can be used identically in all settings in the end and maybe just a little side note there. We're currently in the process of building this platform or on the procurement process as well and we're having a request for interest out there and our eye out there where we're looking also a little bit for what the market looks like to get an idea of what system integrators might be able and willing to build that platform and I'm going to happily share this link also later on but there we're also looking for interested parties of course. And I think maybe one last note when it comes to the whole implementing part I guess we're well aware that in a lot of cases digital government solutions or services are already in place and that we're not starting here from a green playing field but what we witness often when it comes to digitalization of government services and what we often see and as I said Germany is definitely not exception when it comes to that that it is still very much often operated in silos and I think this is where we still can make a good contribution with the Gustach initiative to break up the silos a little bit to follow a whole of government approach and make sure that the investments now are spent in a multi-purpose and cross sector digital solutions. And yeah, that's all for now. I would say thank you. Thank you. I think one specific point you alluded to that maybe you will call on to reflection from the panel here again is when we talk about digital transformation or digital government services enablements by the partnerships that were presented here this model itself is not solely the solution itself it cannot be implemented in idle solution of other enabling factors in terms of the overall strategy required by member states by country governments to really provide holistic citizen services centered services in a digital mean. So maybe questions to the overall panel here what are other enabling components or a enabling environment looks like in order for successful digital governance especially in the context of the country audience that we have here maybe drawing on insights and experience and learnings that you've seen on what other elements needs to be in place in institutionally or in principles so that's a more whole government approach can actually be realized so anybody would like to provide an intervention on this. Maybe let me kick off just to I think we have already mentioned few of them because indeed I mean we all know that it's not only about technology it's about so many other things it's about the you know the people capacity you need to have smart workforce for a smart government you cannot just have a smart government you need the workforce itself needs to be ready you know to adopt and use and also create those types of services but I would like maybe from at least the ITU perspective really remind us all again for the connectivity issues because you know particularly in you know LDCs and the SIDS etc. I think the connectivity might be still an issue particularly in some geographical areas where you don't have necessarily a full access to broadband and I think the approach that we are trying to take in the gas stack is really to think how can we enable all the government services different across different channels I mean you know it's not only about you know being able being available online but I think that you need to make you know some of the services also available whether through the normal mobile channels like you know USSD type of an SMS type of approach even IVRs and the things like that but also think of you know enabling those types of government services already on the tools or through the tools that people are already using so this can cater a little bit to the issue of digital literacy because we still see that there is you know still a kind of a gap in terms of you know citizens capacity to use those types of services and we all know that social media now is one of the tools that is being uptick by a lot of people and it's important that we leverage those types of channels to make sure that you know that anyone access you know the government services you know the use of chatbots for example I think all government services should be or could be available through those types of you know chatbots particularly if those chatbots are also AI enabled where you know people can use natural language processing and you know even sometimes their voice etc to be able to find the types of service instead of them being you know have to browse hundreds of services until they find what they need I think the governments needs to think of how to make those accessible even in areas of infrastructure that is still not developed and also to cater to digital literacy issues so those are two examples of other enabling elements that will have huge impact on the uptake it's not enough to have a service available the most important that people use it because we saw that in some countries services are available online but people are not really using it at least at large scale so I think you know having this kind of thinking in terms of all the other you know enabling environment factors and really try to address them that are of course other things but maybe others will try to touch base on them as well. I can maybe jump in I'm not sure if Martin is back with us but I think I just want to underline one thing that he also mentioned earlier I think it's often also really about not only a change of infrastructure or provision of a technology infrastructure but also really about a change of mindset when it comes to digitalization and it's just very important to take that steps to see clearly I guess the chances but also the risks of course that some infrastructures hold but also to overcome a skepticism that often comes with the use of new technology and in the end of course I think one of the key aspects is to really focus on citizen-centric solutions and on the key and focusing firstly on really understanding the key challenges and the citizen challenges that are faced when it comes to the access of government services. I hope when the urge can somebody confirm I can comment as well. So basically one of the components that is really obligatory to develop it is the actual practice of it so meaning that actually the first use cases that can be deployed these can be fairly simple and easy but what is critical about that is that we need to celebrate this practice when there is a good success story even if it's a small digital service then we need to celebrate and talk about it as well but why is this important is that for example in Estonia we have this way of getting the society in digital transformation on this positive feedback cycle it's kind of the way that every once in a while I don't know once a year twice a year there is some sort of a new digital service and the society it's useful and it's practical but you need to keep this positive experiences on a regular basis but this also builds the technical and the community of the main experts around the different services so it's important to celebrate the practice and also to start small it's not important to start with the most difficult and bigger services it can be done in a very very subtle and easy way and then start with the more difficult ones, thank you Great reflection Martin and certainly as I mentioned you know Estonia is a great example of seeing how digital governments actually really advance I think some other you know complementary components or elements enabling environment is the setup of good holistic policies and regulations in place and of course the underlying infrastructure as well and you know learning from a unique model or other digital governance settings where there is vibrant connections between private and public sectors make these services fully available and digitalized so it's something we were observing and we're looking to see how we can broaden that learning and experience into countries that are looking into establishing a similar structure or model as such I think in the interest of time we will probably move on to wrapping up but also opening up the floor to the audience here are any questions to our panel here so maybe over to ITU as a technical monitoring agency to help us funnel through questions Maybe Sherman I see a question actually from the floor from Ashim Malik who I send my regards by the way where you worked with Ashim Hello everyone I have been connected since Senegal Yes, hello Ashim, go ahead Yes, so I have already written on the chat to take into account the initiative and the quality of the discourse of the experts that have been exposed I just wanted to draw the attention of the consultants and experts on a phenomenon that perhaps catches us with the COVID-19 but also that is essential today in the development of our countries and our economies it's the e-commerce aspects so we have from other countries in Africa developed strategies on e-commerce which are included in the framework of the free economic exchange zone which makes 1.2 billion inhabitants so it's a common market colossal by its size but also by its requirements because today I don't think technology has really found the ideal solution for the development of e-commerce in Africa so it's the development of e-commerce and then we will take into account the payment methods, the interoperability the digital financial inclusion which are the very essential aspects of development on which the goal is to have a particular accent today on, I mean this problem of acutely I just want to say hello to Hanik who did an extraordinary work with us who did it with health today I'm looking forward to seeing other problems that are related to the development of the country thank you very much Thank you, Hashim, maybe I can provide some response elements and I say hello to Hashim I think we have worked together in Senegal for many other problems and maybe this initiative actually responds in some way to some challenges we have encountered during the first projects we have tried to do together certainly we all agree on the fact that e-commerce becomes more and more important especially with the closure of the markets during the Covid and the need to immediately go through e-commerce and besides in the context of the Gavstech project we take into account what we call the building blocks there is actually a module on e-commerce platforms and how it actually integrates with other modules that concern for example electronic payment and digital identity and also the whole security aspect of course electronic commerce is linked to many other elements it is not enough to have a platform to really put in place electronic commerce you also have to have the chain of provisioning all the transport there are a lot of elements that are necessary also you have to think about the regulatory aspects that are linked to e-commerce especially if e-commerce also concerns between countries so these aspects will be studied but also included in the work that we are doing to help governments to establish this kind of platform this kind of solution that should be available for all the related sectors that need to have this kind of platform and solution and I think we also work in close collaboration in close collaboration with the United Nations that are specialized in e-commerce such as the UNCTAD or the ITC International Trade Center that are also part of this large group of partners with whom we work so I hope it will help you and once again I send you my best greetings and it is very good to see you again here Thank you for the question both of you I believe there is a question from the Kuwait delegate Ms. Samair from Kuwait the floor is yours Good morning I want to thank you for this very important event for all of us in collaboration and outside of cooperation we know that the techniques and the changes are one of the most important things that are going on the field of communication at the moment but I have a very simple question I noticed that the website does not include Arabic translation this question was in the chat why there is no translation for the Arabic for this event all the languages are available in Arabic, we are interested in this topic and in the last meeting for the the communication team with decisions and declarations and announcements and the public authorities in Arabic are interested in the technical issue of the statement in the declaration so I would like to solve this issue so that the Arabic region can fully benefit from this event Thank you Thank you for the question I think the translation team I hope that the translation interpretation can be resolved for the rest of the week Is there any questions that you would like to answer? Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you F owner Thanks I believe that it was a question for the rest of the week Is there any question from the audience I believe there is a full comment from cynical I think there was an earlier Ms. Rosario Galvan commented or raised the question about how interoperability would work for crisis management in national disasters or others. And by building blocks on top of core administrative layers, how feasible would it be a stitch and deploy blocks on demand to serve decision makers on the ground under critical conditions when there is an urgency and every minute matters? Is there any reflection from the panel in terms of how responsive and agile deployment of services from a country's perspective to manage crisis, particularly in the context and the light of the pandemic recently, what could be learned from an experience like this? Maybe I can provide some elements there, but also others can chime in. I think the whole concept of powering governments was right, service infrastructure is key, particularly that if you have these types of infrastructure, it becomes very quick and very responsive to deploy new services, particularly in cases of emergencies. And not only for emergencies, obviously, but also in terms of emergencies. However, establishing these types of infrastructure takes time, it's a significant investment and I don't think that we can do this quickly. It takes years to establish these types of infrastructure, but once the infrastructure is there, then adding new services, creating some sort of alerts or some sort of campaigns for citizens to inform them about a disaster or having your GIS kind of infrastructure in place that you can use also for natural disasters. This is exactly the type of readiness that we would like to have governments powered by having and be ready to deploy services in a very short period of time and with little investments as well. However, establishing the infrastructure itself is extremely something that is costly and it will take time. However, if you have this infrastructure, it's also easy to launch services that are also interoperable because they are based on a foundation that is interoperable and can enable interoperability. So I think this is maybe one additional reason why governments needs to consider investing in having those kind of building blocks that are standing and ready to be used and consumed depending on the needs. Maybe to just add on what Honey just said, I think as well, it's not that the building blocks provide a super agile measure to directly adjust government services, but I think situations as the global pandemic also over the last year show quite intensely in what sectors and areas good government services and accessible government services can help in providing education and as well as in making social welfare payments, maybe, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it's also just put to portrait again that also for prices preparedness, it is essential to have good digital government services in place and if this is happening, it makes things easier in moments of crisis as well. Thank you, Sarah. I believe with that, we are coming to a close and thank you very much for our panel today and engaging with the delegations here, talking about scalability and government services. Reflecting on Sarah's earlier comments and leaving no one behind, there's one message that I could leave with the audience today is what really resonated with me recently in the Mobile World Congress, Ms. Doreen Bakdan-Martin, the director of the Digital Development Bureau, ITU's book about leaving no one behind, meaning leaving no one offline. So in the context of that, as we're thinking about deploying digital government services, allowing to Honey's point, we would really like to make sure that countries continue to seek effort to broaden coverage and create more equitable access for all of your populations in terms of engaging government services in that regard. So on that note, thank you very much for coming today and enjoy the rest of the Emerging Week back to ITU. So thank you very much for this great session and also thank you very much to all our panelists for running this session, as well as to the captioners and all interpreters. I'm calling for our facilitator of the all events and to take over and now to lead us towards the next building blocks of the event. So I don't know if Aminata is ready with us. This is open call. I don't see, but if she's not with us, she will be just soon in the following session. So ladies and gentlemen and all colleagues on behalf of all organizers of this session and the GovStack, we would like to thank you very much for being with us and we see at the next session and the opening ceremony of the event. So thank you very much and see you soon. Thank you. Thank you, session is closed. Thank you, bye-bye. Bye. Good afternoon, Mr. Atreus. Good to see that you could connect. Hi, how are you? Can you hear me okay? Yes, I can hear you fine. My name is Maite, I work in ITU. Hi, Maite, how are you? Okay. You gave us a bit of a fright this morning. I did? We couldn't get you. You couldn't, how were you trying to reach me? No, it was my colleague Aminata who said you're having problems registering because of the email address. So it's good that you're on and everything works. No, I did have a... Yeah, I was having a little problem. I'm glad I came on half an hour earlier just to try and set this thing up. Exactly. Sound is very good, actually. Huh? Sound is very good at your end. Oh, great, smashing. So you're based at the ITU. Yes, in Geneva. Sure, sure. We're happy to join you. We're happy to have you as well. This is my first event since my new appointment, so... Exactly. I would definitely remember this one. I'm sure you will. Yeah. I don't know if any other participants would like to test sound in the video. Maite, yes, this is Kim Malaliu. I'll be moderating the first session, the opening ceremony. Can you confirm that my audio and video are adequate? Absolutely. Good morning to you. Yes, sound is good, and so is the video. Excellent. I will be starting promptly on the hour. Excellent. And I would ask... We'll have a caption as soon, and the interpreter should also be coming on in the next few minutes. Okay, and the IT in close watch in case we need to move to the video or anything, in case we need to make adjustments, depending on... Absolutely, the moderator will be taking care of that. Okay, thanks a lot, and we'll be doing a picture. So again, I'd ask that the moderator is keen on my cues. Yes? Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, good morning, Ecuador. This is 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 the 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 in 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 in communities with the means to innovate for themselves. So in closing, I do want to thank my fellow directors, Mario Menevich and Chai Sub Lee. It's unusual that you get three of us in an opening ceremony. They're leading the radio communications and 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 account of the spectrum implications as well as the standards process. So 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 we, director, from the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. So now, I want to receive welcome remarks from Mario Menevich, director of the Radio Communication Bureau. Mr. Menevich. 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 a 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 developing 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 increased 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. Back to you. Many thanks. Many thanks, Mr. Manipich. 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, LDCs, and SIDS, as services and applications are still too difficult for everyone, specifically like aged people and the people who need special assistance. So, I wish to share with you that year 2020, during the pandemic, ICT increased over 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, and all sectors are now transforming with the help of ICTs. For example, I to stand as currently support the 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-health, technology for financial inclusion, and artificial intelligence. So, inclusive standardization processes help us to move forward together. So, with the 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, I to introduce reduced membership fees for startups and SMEs following the reduced fees for academia introduced in year 2011. And the companies of all sizes in developing countries also benefit from reduced membership fees. So, our world is highly diverse in culture, language, and levels of economic development, but we convene at ITU, you know, 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 connections help us to care for each other better and build a better future for, thank you very much, brought 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 would 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-Marting 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 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 for internet growth. 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, LLDs and CIS, 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 Cs. In addition, public and private stakeholders need to work together to build more equitable and inclusive digital economy. LLDCs 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 Lease 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 them and also welcome them to the UN family and its 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 at 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 multilateral, it is critical to make meaningful efforts towards providing universal and affordable access to the internet in all LDCs and landlocked 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 regulatory technology transfer. As noted in the ITU facts and figures in 2020, about a quarter of the population in the LDCs and 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, and other non-UN partners to continue to make efforts to help bridge this digital divide and to expand access and supporting initiatives and institutions such as the Connect 2030 agenda for the Global Telecommunications Information and Communication Technology Broadband Commission, which seeks to enable 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 the level of connectivity and digital cooperation are necessary building blocks for strengthening science, technology and innovation and also play a key role in bringing in 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 much 2020. And as we're witnessing at the moment in some parts of the world, a threat of the third wave will extend this disruption to their education even further. Another key disruption is that to the tourism sector in these countries. And according to a recent ANTERP 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 more severe. Meaningful access to emerging 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 already, 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 are to be prioritized in this 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 the 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 this information 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 information technologies that will support the furthest through the following means. First, to enhance the STI capacity, including integrating STI in traditional development strategies, to promote science technology that innovation ecosystems of the LDCs and align STI with the industrial trade and education policies, to create an 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 in research and development to increase productive capacities in the LDCs including incorporating participation of girls and women in STI understand. And last but not least, to promote collaboration between academies of science in providing scientific advice to advise on policy formulation. While the technology is 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 Mal Connectivity 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, Mr. Setipa. We are honored today to have with us her Excellency, Ms. Vianna 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 failure of a nation condemns it inevitably to the economic, social and educational track. Currently, almost all human activities are strengthened with 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 we form in 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 by 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. Just 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 of 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 citizenship and the possibilities of economic insertion. This hard reality invites us all and those of us who lead the telecommunications and tech sector to work to reduce this digital gap, always thinking about the premise that the smaller digital gap, more social equality and greater economic progress for all. Since we have been managing the Ecuadorian government for a few weeks, we have designed a technological route that will allow us to bring citizens to technology, understanding that if we do not make the right and ready decisions, we will condemn the next generation to live in economic and social inequity. The pandemic has evidently revealed the lack of connectivity, especially in rural areas. That is why 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 at reasonably low costs. These are the fundamental pillars to reduce the digital gap, and it is 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 generating strategies to improve connectivity, to make an increase in efficiency in public administration, with the rise of digital governments and developing digital social culture that imposes 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 innovative opportunities, avoiding brain fumes and capacities and positioning research and development. For this, we have to ensure access to connectivity and internet. We still have 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, 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, we will continue to work on national and regional public policies that allow us to adopt TICS and strengthen the companies of this turn 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, 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 few tributary stimulus for the operators who want to invest, which we will soon be correcting and motivating from the government and regulation. For this, it is important to manage 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 no more than a creative form in which we use that technology to improve our lives. The digital agenda of Ecuador, the technological route page and our new policies have a chapter dedicated to the choice of emerging technologies for sustainable development, aimed at fostering its use of promoting the innovation, development and research in the benefit of the productive sectors and of the entire society, fostering a culture of data and strengthening an environment that allows us to adapt these technologies contributing to ODS-9, which impulsates the construction of resilient infrastructures. In Ecuador, we have an inclination towards the TIC data, advanced analytics and computation in the cloud, in addition to artificial and robotic intelligence. We are going to focus on that, 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 avant-garde and in sync with entrepreneurs who support us with innovation. From the social field, we will be applying projects for development promotion and use of TICS emerging, while at the same time, we diagram a regulatory or regulatory 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 areas that are unattended, social or marginal. We also have pilot projects with new technologies to reach areas with little geographical access such as TV-Wide Space technology via transmission on the internet to remote 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 traffic in line. In Ecuador, it is working for the digitization of documents such as identity and license for driving so that in the near future, citizens can make use of mobile devices by accessing such documents from their cell phone. We are also dedicating efforts so that the largest number of projects can be carried out in line until 2025, when the government would end. With this, we will contribute to the 16th objective 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 achieve it. Together, public institutions, private, NGO, 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. Bye, Esther. Ambassador Lagoia? No, no, no, he's not muted, but something going wrong. We don't hear him anymore. Let me check. Ambassador Lagoia, if you can hear me, can you, can you know it? If you can, yeah, we can't hear you. We can't hear you at the moment. So I, yeah, I can't, 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, I'm so sorry. If the IT, if the moderators would queue up the next speaker, which is a video message from Maria Francesca, Spatuliziano, she is the Assistant Secretary General of the Policy Coordination and Interagency Affairs of 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 Teralia 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 Leguio, 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. My 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, mostly women and in the developing world, still offline. This fundamental gap between the digital heads and have not 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 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. These 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 leo satellites, TV, wide space, 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, LDCs and the SIDS 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 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 if you would 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, right, but we still can't hear you. Perhaps we can go to, let's try one more time and if not, we'll go to the photo and then try the audio one last time. No, still not, still not hearing. Perhaps we can go to the group photo. You can hear me. So what I'm asked 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. Let me wait for one more second. Please put your best smile. Ready? Here we go. I have more participants just a second. Again, please smile. Amazing. And one last time. Amazing. This is done. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So 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 because they were expecting us to go over time a little bit. So let me take the opportunity to provide, 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. Thanks also to all of our 222 participants for joining us. Please refer to the event 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 for the next session, which we will launch immediately on trends in emerging technology for connectivity. Thank you to all. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Can you hear me loud and clear? Loud and clear, Your Excellency. I was on top. Yeah, we, I think somebody have, 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 for this series of very important engagements. As you are aware, as the topic of our discussion, Trends in Emerging Technologies 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 adopt 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 youths to facilitate building the productive capacity, scalability and the ecosystem to facilitate growth and development. SDGs attainment, resilience, sustainability and wealth 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 competences 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 requirements of competences 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 using 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 seek, 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 Madam 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 Kha. 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 of emerging technology. Next slide please. So we have heard it in the previous discussion that about half of the world population is offline and in this offline population most of them are concentrated in the least developing countries. Only 19% of the people in LDCs are online and if we look on the landlocked developing countries it's about 27%. And when we go regionally, Africa and Asia Pacific are the least 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 we have very 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 many steps 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 and 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 the best option taking into account the constraints, the geographical constraints 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. Next slide please. So for 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? And the ITU Board of Management map which you will hear about tomorrow is one of these type of infrastructure mapping. And then you can have order mapping like the utilities map. 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 all existing so that we see how to build the fiber if it is 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 because it's really the first step of identifying what we need 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 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 other option for connectivity which is most likely the most popular technology option is the wireless cellular where we have the 2G, 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 applications which require low latency, which you can have a lot of bandwidth 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 satellite technology will have this advantage of being available everywhere. They have really a huge coverage. And then we will talk about 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 wireless 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 cost can be smaller. So fiber is a solid candidate but indeed sometimes the initial cost of investments so 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 in 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 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-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 having 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 are 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're 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 obstacle than the regular frequencies we use for wireless. So 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 space. The free space optical communication is also an all technology which is being revisited. We have a talk on free space optimal optical communication on Wednesday also at 2 p.m. 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 lower range than 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 allow you to actually use something which already exists to optimize your existing infrastructure to offer connectivity. In 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 they 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 best fit the need we have at this time and I will stop here in 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 A4 AI 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 am 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 am with the Alliance for Affordable Internet or A4 AI 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 in 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 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 to 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 civil 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 TB white spaces we do 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 pay 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 a 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 of all those scores combining together reflecting 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 that 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 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 as 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 these 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 the first experience of 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 and 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 next few 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 and developing 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 particularly 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 considering these questions 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 rank to 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 in 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 broadband plans create smart spending so they make governments more effective in their public spending and they also create a sense of accountability 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 some of the recommendations from our most recent affordability report as relating to broadband plans bringing in a diverse inputs from a diverse range of sectors whether it'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 education, 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 then the third one is that a plan must come with funding commitments words are only so good, words should quite frequently and ideally be followed up with action and that creates a system of assessment and review and that allows the government 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. Gomez the CEO of Internet will take the floor kindly take the floor Good morning Yes Good morning First I would like to thank the invitation to be part of this session as an internet representative for all of 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 for all of us can you help me with the presentation you are showing it Internet for all of us was born from the initiative of cutting the digital gap in Latin America where we know there are more than 100 million people without internet connectivity where the connectivity index of rural areas is so important in urban areas and that is why Internet for all of us in Peru product of the Alliance of Telefónica of Peru, Facebook Connectivity CAF and Bidinvest a mobile infrastructure operator with rural focus and a sustainable innovative model with the goal of connecting more than 6 million people of the country in order to give them the same opportunities and promote their social and economic development and therefore the development of the same country Peru the next thank you before yes and PT started its operations in 2019 selecting Peru as a pilot country a country with important challenges as well as great opportunities to execute the project among the challenges for the connectivity of rural areas and that are the barriers we know are characteristics responsible of this connectivity gap of these areas we have a complicated geography in Peru mountains, jungle and coast a low income level of people and a low population density in urban focus due to intense traffic in these areas and the basic infrastructure is poor and scarce finally technology is designed for urban demand however beyond the existing challenges we found in Peru important opportunities to start the operations and look at the goal of connecting between the main infrastructure including a unique model in the world this figure was created to increase the coverage of mobile services in rural areas of Peru the OEMR can provide mobile access and transport networks to the country's mobile operators so that they can extend the service in rural areas of the country this through a major model the OEMR is the one that makes the investment of infrastructure maintenance and operation and the operator or the MNO puts its spectrum and maintains the relationship with the final customers precisely this concession is the one that has the internet for everyone to operate in Peru the concession of mobile in rural areas another of the opportunities that Peru has is the existence of the optical fiber projects in regional development in Peru they are fiber projects that extend from north to south and west and are investment projects of the state and can be used by the private or any operator who wants to operate in rural areas 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 voice service 2G and another 2.8 million people did not have any type 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 look for allies to connect in a sustainable way to non-connected allies 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 Vidimves Telefónica as a heritage and 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 investments necessary for the project our technological model and business 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 is shared 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 clients 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 using predictive models for the reduction of failures and the reduction of the operating costs so we also believe that this increases the availability of services, especially in rural areas where the transfer to attend a failure can require even days we are betting on new technologies innovation and open systems because we believe 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 display of open run we have the use of radio of non-licensed band and we are doing tests with TV White Space as Bajol for the SAIS 4G in the same way we believe that the sharing of the infrastructure to enhance sustainability of the displays and accelerate it is very important 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 planning and adjust all our solutions to rural demand the next please what have we done in the last two years of work since we were created for all has implemented more than 1600 LTE 4G to provide connectivity to more than 2.1 million people who are in 12,000 populated centers for which invested more than 40 million dollars in equipment and services on our infrastructure we are offering services to two mobile operators in Peru Telefonic and Intel 50% of our sites 4G are being used under the satellite and the other 50% transport solutions we have become the allies of the state to cut the digital breach of Peru but also the allies of mobile operators being a solution to provide services in rural areas without losing focus in urban areas our commitment is still firm our goal is to connect more than 2.4 million people in more than 13,000 populated centers the next when the pandemic started worldwide as we know the classes were preserved and the model of virtual classes was adopted in Peru the government implemented the app at home via tv or internet but despite the efforts of its classes and others had to walk kilometers to be able to capture signals and connect to their classes in this context IPTE took the 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 which the signal of internet could be captured of course we committed ourselves to accelerate a solution for this town and we deployed the 4G service in this locality providing the internet service to the children this locality and this locality only to confirm that internet for everyone is a model that is working we are already harvesting fruits 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 we have 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 panelists the floor is open for Q&A you may raise your hand if you have a question we have Ghana Mr. Abdulay and Tegba you have the floor, please proceed thank you my question goes to the last presenter internet brother para internet 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 there is a 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 a different role I want to understand the collaboration between the internet the universal access fund and then your company okay yes in Peru there are universal funds of course and in fact there is a universal fund that was used for the construction of the fiber optic projects that today that today cover and are still in course and that cover the whole country from north to south west we we can access as a moving infrastructure operator the use of those fiber optic projects that is the contribution of the state to the company but not for everyone can as an operator 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 after the Peruvian state is promoting several policies that are allowing to the operators that all the taxes that are paid by the spectrum are directed to construct infrastructure in rural areas of the country and the internet for everyone one of the actors that then constructs and explains its infrastructure in rural areas I don't know if with this I answered the question yes please thank you ok thank you do we have any more questions on the floor ok there is a question but 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 I think it's 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 what do we need and then which one of these emerging technology can help us most each objective we have so if I take an example which I have in talk 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 where can that help us the most Teddy said it 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 with which technology it's together what do we want to do with the technology back to you thank you very much Teddy can you please intervene here yeah sure so quite something to I mean that's a 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 exists 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 for 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 their adoption throughout many parts of the world. Teddy there was a follow-up question on chat that asked that you stated during your presentation that your company did research in Uganda did you cover all the country? Yes so what we can do is I think 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 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 communication 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 kind of 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 I appreciate it. 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 the . the is the is the is the is the is the is years of bandage 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. Especially thinking about complicated geographies, as I was telling you about Peru. So here we have to think about satellite solutions or other types of haps solutions where we can somehow connect rural areas of the country, but at a low cost. That's where the other challenge is that the emerging technologies have to be at a low cost. But for rural areas where there are low income and low population density, we wouldn't have the way to sustain these deployments. Another of the points I think of emerging technologies is that they have to be as open and flexible as possible. We need integration and interoperability. We need to take into account that the platforms need to be managed. Thank you very much. That's very valuable. We're coming to the end of this very insightful session. 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 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 very difficult question, but I will say maybe the vision of emerging technology for me is that it actually really helped people 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 my takeaway 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. Thank you very much, Ted. Can you quickly add a voice? Sure. 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. It's unique in the sense that everyone is able to have a unique experience fit to their life and their background and their perspective. Option of trends of emerging technologies for connectivity and digitalization is to promote the growth of market creating innovations, including frugal innovations for connectivity, where communities, 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 costs in accessibility and other aspects. So with 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 patience. Thank you. And Excellencies and ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you very much. Recording in progress. Dear Pablo, I think you are muted. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear a lot on clear. Oh good. Well, we can start in a minute. The event. We are, I think we are totally ready to start. Well, we can start now with the event. I think it's quite clear and distinguished guests and representatives of the different institutions in the region that are present. And all the guests of the different regions, different countries. Excuse me, sorry to interrupt you. I have an issue with English channel. I don't hear English. English both. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's fine. Thank you. Sorry about that. Dear public, can you please start again? We haven't had the interpretation yet. Yeah, gracias. Eh, creo que ya estamos listos para empezar y se agradezco a todas las personas que se han conectado y distinguidos invitados y representantes de las diferentes insuficciones a nivel mundial en las diferentes regiones que están presentes, damas y caballeros. Para mí es un gran honor iniciar la primera sesión de la Segunda Región y regional coloquio sin cogir el acceso a internet. It's a light take 2021. Este año se desarrolla en el marco y un evento global de tecnologías emergentes para la conectividad cuyo tema es la aceleración de la transformación digital en países. El lc el lc es el lc es ahí es. Y en la mañana tuvimos varias sesiones ya hemos empezado las otras regiones desde las tendencias de tecnologías emergentes para la conectividad y la transformación digital. Y también tuvimos la ceremonia de apertura con la participación de autoridades de diferentes ministerios y utilidades a nivel mundial de todas las regiones y de la Unión Internacional que la comunicación es también de los sectores de la UIT. En esta ocasión tendremos la participación de esta sesión de dos ponencias de expertos de las comisiones de estudio de la Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones del sector de estandarización y del sector de desarrollo. Señor David Day y Amad Reza Sharifat. Para empezar hoy le doy la bienvenida como introducción al señor director regional de la Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones para la región de las Américas el señor Bruno Ramos por favor señor Ramos le pasó la palabra. Muchas gracias Pablo me escuchen. Okay. Gracias Pablo. I will change to English to my speech. So just to inform the participants that I'm going to change to English. First of all thank you very much for being present and very welcome to you all. And a very, you know, special thanks for the panelists for this first session. David and my dear friend Ahmed for being present. So distinguished guests and representatives of the American America's institutions present here today. And for sure the other regions. Ladies and gentlemen. It's a great honor for me to outcome new to the new technologies and internet colloquium of the Americas region. I tech. This year. The event takes place within the framework of the it global action focus on emergency technologies for connectivity. Particularly accelerating digital transformation in least developed countries and this is landlocked developing countries and DC and small island developing countries since this week in the different regions of the world. We will sharing our own knowledge and that for our invited speakers and the next week for 12 to 16 July, we will offer training sessions on this same topics. All of these trainings will be provided online. So, I will invite you to review the agenda actively participate in this training. Ladies and gentlemen, during this week, we will have very diverse interesting and enriching discussions on emerging technologies. We will have the opportunity to listen to the experiences of those who have already begun to adopt this technologies and the challenges they have faced. We will be able to jointly identify the opportunities and projections that these technologies trigger. We will be able to analyze if they will contribute to closing the digital divide, and especially if they will contribute to connecting all rural and unservant areas. We will hear from government authorities who will share their national plans and companies representatives who will share new developments in the industry. We will also share information on the work carried out by regional organizations and the ITU in fostering cooperation to achieve our common objectives. As you know, all the countries in the Americas region are planning on or already working on the deployment of 5G networks and the adoption of emergency technologies. Both efforts are integrated in planning towards economic recovery and in regional preparations for the new normal. After the strong blow caused by the pandemic, the final impact of which we cannot yet calculate in full. Our objective is to offer a space for analysis and debate where the exchange of contributions from all the sectors involved may jointly build more inclusive and efficient connectivity with new generation networks. Projected towards 2030 to achieve the UN sustainable development goals. The different sessions and discussion panels that have been prepared have taken into account the needs of the region in key issues and will provide an opportunity for the participating expert to debate the adoption of concrete strategies that take advantage of technological advances and transform then towards social development and economic growth in the Americas region. We are clear that in this contest, we are faced with multiple challenges. For example, it is necessary to swiftly adapt regulatory frameworks so that rapid technological advances are quickly translated into tangible benefits. We must work on the adoption of innovation systems that dynamically integrate the contributions of all stakeholders. It is essential to have a transparent and efficient management of the electromagnetic spectrum and also to provide a conducive environment so that service providers can bring the benefits of technological advances to the entire population. Dear friends, through technological cooperation schemes, the ITU provides its experience, knowledge and human resources for the development of activities, projects, training programs and concrete actions, bridging distances in order to promote the benefits offered by ICTs, reduce the gap digital and move towards the global objective that leaves no citizen behind. I gladly reiterate the invitation to the discussions and training sessions that will take place in these two weeks. Likewise, I invite you to be part of the work that the ITU develops continuously in these study groups. With the pandemic, we have perfected the procedures for remote participation in these meetings where, throughout the year, all aspects of emerging technologies will be discussed together with experts from countries around the world. Dear friends, to finish, I leave you with a thought. The appropriate use of information and communication technologies, the adoption of emergency technologies, the deployment of next generation networks, the implementation of efficient processes, the establishment of interconnectivity, the construction of smart cities and communities will help us build a better world. At the ITU, we are working to facilitate the use of these technologies, connect the unconnected and promote the different applications that reactivate countries economies for the benefits of each one of us. Thank you very much. I give the floor back to Pablo for continuing the panel. Thank you, Pablo. Thank you very much, Mr. Ramos. Excellent. Thank you for your words of welcome. We have the presentation of the expert of the study commission number 13, the director of the nationalization of the international telecommunications union, Mr. David Dye, who is going to put a master's speech on the inspection of DPI packages and the benefits for the operators. With the title of his presentation yesterday and tomorrow for the access and accession of the network in the international telecommunications sector. Please, Mr. David and I will pass the floor back to you. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me, chairman? Yes, we can hear you. Pablo, can you hear me? We can hear you. Yes, please go ahead. Okay, thank you. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, everyone. Now I'd like to share some information about the network awareness in ITUT. The title of my presentation is yesterday, today and tomorrow for network awareness in ITUT. I'm David Dye from Fiberholm. I'm also the rector of ITUT 27, start researching. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. Okay, thank you. My report includes five aspects. The first one is about the motive, challenge, and change for network awareness. I hope I can give a detailed, you know, discussion for overview of network awareness in this part. And secondly, I want to give information about the positive recommendations related to network awareness. This is a summary of studying Q3 about network awareness in ITUT. And the third aspect is about carbon study about network awareness. This part is about several active work items related to network awareness. And the first one is about the upper layer technologies relying on network awareness. I'd like to introduce several network technologies that are based on network awareness. And the fifth one, and the last one is about the future study related to network awareness. This part is illustration for some candidate study point related to network awareness in the future. Now let me do the part one first. Next slide, please. And first, we've got a question, why does network need network awareness related to technologies and methods? We can find the answer in this slide. You can see from top half of this slide, when network awareness is absent, the network is similar to a blank box, and the trouble is brought to both network service provider and the network user. On the other hand, when network awareness is applied to network, the situation becomes totally different. It can be seen from the bottom half of this slide. Next slide, please. Now let's take a look to the evolution process for one of the network awareness technologies. That's the network service application awareness. Additionally, layer three protocol, layer four protocol, and layer four port is enough to identify a kind of service or application. However, with the development of the network, many things are changing. On the one hand, many service applications try to share the same layer four, layer three protocol, layer four protocol, and layer four port. For example, AGTP-based service application. On the other hand, some Mellis and Hanvo traffic try to use an allocated layer four port in order to disguise itself as normal traffic. So port-based method is not efficient. Then DeepPang is a vacation, come to play an important role. Let's find out how Hanvo traffic disguise itself. DPI can capture it perfectly. Next slide. When some security measures are applied to the network problem occurred to DPI, then the motive for DPI be convergent with artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Now I'd like to give a brief introduction for DPI. DPI is one of the typical network awareness technologies. According to I2T-Y2770, channel package inspection is only responsible for basic protocols, and the middle package inspection can handle the intended protocols such as layer four plus only DeepPang inspection can process the whole data packet, including payload of the packet. So it can be announced that DeepPang inspection is able to handle everything of the packet. There are general two kinds of deployment. Deployment mode for DPI to be used in the network, impact mode, and out-of-pass, in other words, severe mode and parallel mode. The substantial development between two modes is impact mode can help to take some action on the network traffic. Next slide please. Okay, thank you. This slide describes an example application scenario, mobile application scenario of network awareness. In fact, network awareness can be deployed in many network entities in mobile network. To recommend the deployment design are invading DPI into GGSN, or deploy DPI to GIN interface, then it connects SGSN and GGSN, or GI interface then it connects GGSN and the upper layer network. Next slide please. Another example of application scenario can be seen in this slide, that enterprise application scenario of network awareness. In reality, DPI can be very beneficial to enterprise network. For example, network rate can be detected by DPI, then network security can be enhanced. The left part of this slide illustrated there as a bit. The right part depicts that DPI help to improve resource utility of the enterprise network. Next slide please. Anyway, there are pros and cons about network awareness. Sure, network awareness can be much beneficial to network. It can enhance network function and improve network performance. From this slide it can be learned, then network awareness can help network service provider to support capability, such as traffic management, QA assurance, security enhancement, incubated accounting, improved BSS, OSS, and provider value added service. Those capabilities of network awareness bring itself good application prospect. Nevertheless, there are also some challenges to network awareness. The first one is the evolution of related technologies. The second one is the change of the application scenarios. The third one and the last one about policy and regulation. Anyway, there are feasible measures to tackle the information problems. Next slide please. Now that comes to the second part is about public recommendations related to network awareness. Next slide please. So far, ITUT has published six recommendations related to network awareness. And those recommendations are ITUT-Y2770, requirement for deep bank inspection in next generation networks. ITUT-Y2771, framework for deep bank inspection. ITUT-Y2772, mechanisms for the network elements with support of deep bank inspection. And ITUT-Y2773, performance models and medical for deep bank inspection. And ITUT-Y2774, functional requirement of deep bank inspection for future networks. And ITUT-Y2775, performance models and medical for deep bank inspection. You know this ITUT can probably to supplement for network awareness. ITUT-Y23, supplement on DPI terminology. And ITUT-Y25, supplement on DPI use cases and application scenarios. Next slide please. Now let's take a look of ITUT-Y2770 first. ITU specifies the requirement for DPI in NGN. ITUT primarily specifies the requirement for DPI entity in NGN, or raising in particular as a bank site and application identification, flow identification, in the bank data traffic types, signature management reporting to the network management systems and interaction with the policy decision functional entity. Although MNN is NGN, the requirement can be applicable to other types of networks. ITUT-Y2770 can be applied in IP and non-IP network. The template of policy for and flow information can be seen from the top right. And the main aspects of the requirement are listed here, including the A, B, C, D and the four aspects. Next slide please. Another one is ITUT-Y2771, it provides a framework for DPI. The primary purpose of this framework is to describe a structure of approach for designing, defining and implementing DPI solutions in support of service and application awareness for facilitating interoperability. It serves to identify and assist in understanding the network issues from primary and architectural standpoint. The two important models described in ITUT-Y2771 are given here. One of the parts is the basic model for bi-directional DPI. The DPI entity is composed of DPI engines and PIB, policy information-based and local policy decision functional. And meanwhile, a DPI engine is composed of DPI scan function, DPI analysis function and DPI execution function. The next one describes a schedule model for traffic shared among multiple parallel DPI engines. Next slide please. The next one is ITUT-Y2772, it provides a mechanism for the network elements supporting DPI, including the procedure and method as a base of DPI with base to package-based networks. It serves to assist in the understanding of DPI related methods in the phases, protocols, procedures, aspects and process aspects of DPI related products. The typical deployment topology can be seen from the level of this slide. The DPI function can be deployed in almost all layers, including access layer, aggregated layer, and IP metro layer, blah, blah. The right part describes the protocol is changing procedure among DPI engines, local policy decision function and the policy decision functional entity. The protocol is changing procedure among PDF, LPDF, and the management entity. Next slide please. The next one is ITUT-Y2773, it specifies the deployment models and metrics for deep bank detection. It specifies DPI specific deployment models and measure points of DPI deployment metrics. And it also specifies the kinetic visualization method of DPI deployment metrics. Furthermore, DPI deployment decryption template and DPI physical deployment metrics are specified. The typical measure logical topology can be seen from the level of health. And there are five major points, such as the major point between PIB and RPDF, and the major point between tax increase point and DPI engine, and so on. The right part gives the 20 basic deployment metrics such as positive error rate and both negative error rate, etc. Next slide please. The next one is ITUT-Y2774, it specifies the functional requirement of deep bank detection for future network works. For example, LDN, NRV, and other future networks. This goal includes the general requirement of deep bank detection for future networks. DPI functional requirement for LDN, DPI functional requirement for NRV, DPI functional requirement for SAFC, and DPI and the service. And it also adds DPI functional requirement for network visualization, and DPI functional requirement for evolving mobile networks. This slide illustrates the functional requirement for evolving mobile network and SAFC as examples. As to evolving mobile network, functional requirement lies in three aspects, general requirement, interface requirement, and protocol requirement. As to SAFC, we've got two aspects of the requirement, classification requirement and general functional requirement. Next slide please. The next one is ITUT-Y2775, it specifies the functional architecture of deep bank detection for future networks. This goal includes the general DPI functional architecture aspects, and DPI functional architecture for LDN, and DPI functional architecture for NRV, and DPI functional architecture for SAFC, and DPI and the service. DPI functional architecture for network visualization, and DPI functional architecture for evolving mobile network. And then example, this slide describes the functional architecture for LDN. The labeled part is a general architecture of DPI for LDN. The right part gives an application scenario for multiple controllers. Next slide please. Yes, this one. And we have also got two supplement for network awareness. ITUT-Y23 provides complementary information on DPI terminology related to the flow and application to the computer, hand-killer processing and a layer of protocol architecture, and defined by ITUT-Y2770. The labeled part of the slide illustrates the three main terms, flow to the computer, application to the computer, and DPI signature. And ITUT-Y25 provides the complementary information. Sorry, I cannot hear you anymore. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. Now you sound better. Yeah. Now I can hear you. Please continue. Thank you so much. Okay. Then ITUT-Y35 provides complementary information on DPI specification for use cases and application scenarios in evolving networks. Detailed use cases are specified including the application identification and traffic detection. Application improvement measurements. Application specific energy measurement. Application statistics before gene diagnosis and analysis. Application traffic optimization and application enrichment. For vision of tied service and the environmental control, the application scenario of DPI in NGN enterprise networks and the software defined network are specified to help guide the deployment of DPI for service application awareness in evolving networks. The right half of the slide depicts the application scenario for DPI deployment in NGN context. Next slide, please. Okay. Now let me introduce the third part, carbon studying about network awareness. Next slide, please. Yes. And the third one is ITUT-Y.B DPI mechanism. It is specified the mechanism of deep-fangled inspection applied in network big data context. This scope includes the role of DPI in big data and data classification mechanism using DPI for network big data and data pre-processing mechanism using deep-fangled inspection for network big data. And the coordination process in mechanisms of DPI in network big data context. In the phases between deep-fangled inspection and of layer big data related methods. Great change component to when DPI is applied in network big data context. The top level illustrates the change occurring to DPI entity and the top right describes the change about the DPI engine. In addition, a new component named DPI engine is introduced in the bottom right, the bottom left, DPI is a Pamela coordination model for multiple DPI entities. Next slide, please. Another active work item is ITUT-Y mechanism for traffic awareness based on machine learning. It is specified the mechanism of traffic awareness. Sorry. Traffic awareness for application to computer agnostic traffic based on machine learning. This scope includes overview of traffic awareness for application to the computer agnostic traffic. General mechanism of traffic awareness for application to the computer agnostic traffic. AI and machine learning method adopted to traffic awareness for application to the computer agnostic traffic. Implementation method of traffic awareness for application to the computer agnostic traffic based on machine learning. Report and the auxiliary control mechanisms for the managed traffic. AI and machine learning can bring up to various areas including network. AI and machine learning can also have network awareness and bring more network intelligence to network itself. Traffic awareness based on machine learning is one of the network intelligence. This technology that can be used in the independent machine learning system and embedded machine learning system. It is noted that the independent machine learning system and the embedded machine learning system can be designed in the co-operation mode or independent mode. It is sure knowledge based and the concurrent machine learning method are also necessary. The example of machine learning method is already in the figure is a deep neural network. By the time artificial intelligence and machine learning begin to be convergent with network awareness. The top left quarter gives a machine learning model. Then it's a hybrid machine learning system. The bottom left is derived a template for knowledge based used by the machine learning system. The right half illustrates the concurrent machine learning method. Next slide please. And another one is the ITU-TY that makes intelligent network status awareness. It is specified mechanisms for intelligent awareness of network status. This scope includes the introduction of intelligent awareness of network status. Overview of mechanisms for intelligent awareness of network status. Mechanisms for intelligent awareness of network fault. Mechanisms for intelligent awareness of network performance. Mechanisms for intelligent awareness for network load. Mechanisms for intelligent awareness of other aspects of network status. Intelligent awareness for network status is an aspect of network awareness. The main model for Intelligent Network Stated Awareness is a four-layer logical structure that can be seen from the labeled part of this slide. And the main process includes six steps that can be seen from the right half of this slide. Next slide, please. And the next one is the I2DIY.architecture for Intelligent Network Requirements Awareness. This is set by the FACTIONAL ARCHETECTURE of INTELLIGENT ARRUITES for requirements. Its scope includes a new direction of intelligent awareness for network requirements, and a more FACTIONAL ARCHETECTURE of INTELLIGENT ARRUITES for network requirements. Network service data based FACTIONAL ARCHETECTURE of INTELLIGENT ARRUITES for network requirements crowd sourcing basis based FACTIONAL ARCHETECTURE of INTELLIGENT ARRUITES for network requirements. requirement is computer functional architecture and requirement for core functional architecture and the requirement evaluator functional architecture. The user requirements are written or motive to the network. So intelligent awareness of a network requirement is also much critical. It includes requirement intelligent awareness within a network domain and a knowledge serving among different network domains. The main model for intelligent network requirement at awareness is the composer of COVID data layer, requirement source layer, requirement is computer layer, requirement mining layer, requirement of broker layer and requirement of evaluator layer. And the network can be divided into different domains. Then it can be seen from this slide. Next slide, please. Now let's come to the fourth part is about our layer technology to rely on network awareness related to technologies. Next slide, please. And first, I'd like to give a brief introduction of the relationship between DPI and big data. In a word, DPI and big data has a tight reconnection. One network awareness is a commercial with big data. In hardware and in improvement are also necessary. In reality, network awareness and big data are beneficial to each other. On the one hand, network awareness can help big data to collect the network big data and pre-processing network big data. On the other hand, big data related technologies can help network awareness to implement functions such as intelligent management and control of policy information base. When network awareness applied in big data context, enhancement of DPI engine and induction of DPI media engine can facilitate to improve the functions and performance. Next slide, please. The second one is big data driven network networking. That's BDN. BDN collects big data from network and applications and generate big data intelligence based on big data. It is then provided big data intelligence for city data smarter and autonomous network management, operation, control, optimization, and security, and blah, blah, blah. It includes three plan, network plan, big data plan, and a management plan. The general model of BDN relationship and BDN plan and the autonomous management and control so called are typically in this slide. Next slide, please. The third one is man-like networking. Man-like networking is a set of technologies that enable the network to behave like a man. That is to say, man-like networking enables the network to have the following capabilities, environment awareness and self-awareness, self-learning and thinking, self-decision, self-operation, self-visitoring and self-optimization, and self-protection. Man-like networking is a synthesis of artificial intelligence technologies, network awareness technologies, network self-destructive technologies, and other technologies. Man-like networking is also kind of emerging network architecture, which makes full use of the information set of technologies and has a feature such as self-awareness, self-learning, and thinking, self-decision, self-operation, and so on. The general model for man-like networking can be seen in the left half of the slide. Meanwhile, the relationship between the man-like networking and the related technologies can be seen in the right half of the slide. Next slide, please. Another candidate of a layer of technology based on network awareness and network intelligence is the requirement of defined networking. It can be thought and an enhancement of self-aware and defined networking. The general view logic structure, physical structure, and one of the core components, many AI agents are depicted in the figure of this slide. Next slide, please. Now that come to the last part of my presentation, then about the future study related to network awareness. Next slide, please. Generally, our target is to enhance and improve architecture, mechanism, and methods about network awareness. With the enhancement of the two wings, such as intelligence and cloud, and other technologies, we believe that network awareness related technologies can fly higher and higher. Next slide, please. As to intelligence, not only new network awareness aspects and application related to AI and machine learning can be discovered and developed, but also it is beneficial to apply AI and machine learning to improve the current network technology and methods. Take a DPI as an example. AI and machine learning can be used to improve the performance of DPI engines in kind of management and control of DPI entities and maintain PIB, that's the policy information base, intelligent and so on. This figure illustrates the information and the size of AI and machine learning to be applied in DPI area. Next slide, please. And present, the center of information technology is shifting from network and cloud and to network awareness, it will become different from traditional mode when it works in cloud context. We can improve the network awareness to a cloud-based service. It is called network awareness and the service. The left half of the slide depicts a geological structure. As an example, the right part gives an illustration for DPI and the service, we believe, in the future. Network awareness and the service will play more important role in network area. Next slide, please. That's all for my part. If you have any questions or suggestions, I'm much happy to discuss with you. In the meantime, I'd like to say welcome to join ITUT, question seven, starting with 13. Then the topic is about the DeepPan is a vaccine and network intelligence. And I'd also like to say to welcome to join ITUT, starting with 13, future network with four goals on IMD 2020, cloud computing, and the network infrastructure. Thank you very much. Ganto. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the excellent presentation, Mr. Lai. Yes, I'm very sensitive to the location of, as part of the work that is being done in the study and management of that, the sector of standardization of the international communications about the structure, about cloud computing, about the presentation of Mr. Lai. And the others, as well, can be developed and the sector of standardization. Next, I have the presentation of Mr. Ahmad Reza Sharafat, who is a German expert in the development and management of the development sector and the international communications sector. I'm going to explain a master's degree on the digital transformation for sustainable development, the implementation of 5K, and the transition of 4K. Please, Mr. Ahmad Reza Sharafat, please. Thank you very much, Pablo, and also thank you to my good friend, who started the meeting at the beginning. Today, I would like to talk a little bit about 5G and how we can have a successful deployment of 5G networks. Next slide, please. Next. So the title of my talk is Digital Transformation for Sustainable Development, 5G Deployment and Transition from 4G. Before I start my presentation, I'd like to offer my greetings and wish you all good morning, good afternoon, good evening. It is my pleasure to be with you today and discuss how digital transformation for sustainable development can be achieved via 5G deployment and transition from 4G. In this talk, I assume that in many developing countries, we do have 4G networks. So the focus of my talk is on how we can evolve from 4G networks into 5G networks. Moreover, 5G networks can be divided into two types, enterprise or private 5G networks and public 5G networks. And my focus is on 5G public networks. Next slide, please. So today, my presentation has eight main parts as explained in more detail in the following slides. I will briefly introduce digital transformation followed by IMT 2020 use cases. In ITU, we normally refer to 5G as IMT 2020. So whenever I say IMT 2020, I mean 5G. I will then cover 5G deployment challenges in 5G core network, in 5G transport network, and in 5G radio access network. For end-to-end deployment options, I will end my presentation with conclusions. Next, as you can see, digital transformation is the use of digital technologies for achieving sustainable development and has three pillars, mainly people, processes, and tools. 5G is a vital tool for digital transformation and our focus today is on 5G deployment plans. In my presentation, I will contextualize various technical options for 5G deployment and discuss their impacts. Specifically, I will focus on the migration from 4G to 5G with a view to enhancing interoperability with existing networks and facilities. Next, as you can see on the left, 5G has many use cases and applications. And many aspects need to be considered simultaneously to satisfy application and services requirements. 5G services are divided into three types. Namely, enhanced mobile broadband, which you can see at the top of the triangle. And then we have massive machine-type communication, which you can see on the left of the triangle. And finally, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, which you can see on the right-hand side of the triangle. In this slide, you can also see on the right-hand side where 5G networks and services are different from 4G networks and services. You can see some aspects have been significantly improved. And some other aspects, the improvements in 4G have already been significant. So the amount of improvement is not as significant as in other parts. Next slide, please. Yes. Any network and specifically 5G networks can be divided into three distinct parts. 5G core network, 5G transport network, and 5G radio access network, also known as RAM. Next slide, please. In 5G core network, for the deployment of 5G core network, there are several choices as recommended by 3G PEP. EPC, which is an evolved packet core, is universally adopted by many 4G operators for their core network, which is LTE releases 8 to 13. Then we have EPC and EPC+, which are hardware-based and do not support virtualization. We also have EPC and EPC+, which use reference point interfaces and make their deployment more challenging. Eventually, EPC and EPC+, shall be upgraded to 5G core network, which uses service-based interfaces instead of reference point interfaces. Please note that the timeline for the three choices. The first EPC was from 2008 to 2016, and it addressed LTE releases 8 to 13. And then we have EPC+, which started in 2016. Can you go back to the previous slide? Which started in 2016 and through 2019. And then we have 5G C, which releases 15 to 17 from 2016 to 2021, which is the current year. So there are different stages to make the core network 5G ready. And these are shown on this slide. EPC is optional. EPC+, is mandatory. And 5G C is also mandatory. EPC+, is not officially standardized, but 3GPP is encouraging the operators that have deployed LTE advance to deploy EPC+, which is more scalable and flexible due to separation of control plane from user plane in releases 13, 14. 5G C, which is 5G core, is the core network deployment for all 5G standalone networks. 5G C is easy to deploy in cloud-based networks. Besides, 5G uses service-based interface for the controlled plane interconnections between network functions. And moreover, 5G C supports network slicing, which enables the operator to support different 5G services. Finally, 5G C is a virtualized core network, which means it is much easier to deploy MEC-based services in different slices. Next slide, please. Again, for 5G core network deployment, there are three different and distinct states for migrating from 4G to 5G. For example, an operator can have the following path for 5G deployment from initial state 1, which is a physical EPC deployment to the initial state 3, with physical and virtual EPC, both serving 4G to the intermediate state 2, with virtual EPC serving 4G also, internet working with EPC plus, with serving 5G NSA, non-standalone option 3. Can you go back to the previous slide? Yes, I'm not finished yet. To final state, final state 3, with EPC plus, serving 4G internet working with 5G, serving 5G standalone option 2 slash 4, similar to 5G deployment by Korea Telecom in Korea. Next slide, please. I will now briefly. It seems that you have some issues with the connection. We don't hear you very well. Dear Dr. Sharafat, try to speak now. I just stopped your video. Maybe it would help. The 5G is in the end. Sorry about that. We still hear the issues. OK, let me stop sharing. I will try to help Mr. Sharafat to reconnect. Thank you very much. Meanwhile, please try to reconnect to Mr. Sharafat. I don't know if you can hear me correctly. My volume of my voice. Yes, I can hear you. Yes, thank you. I think Dr. Sharafat left the meeting. He's reconnecting and we'll try to reach him. Before you reconnect to Mr. Sharafat, I would like to extend the invitation to the day of tomorrow and every week, tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday, that we will have several discussion sessions, round tables. Tomorrow it will be about the digital gap, the adoption of networks of new generation, which are rural, in which we have the participation of representatives of governments of Colombia, Uruguay, Peru, Mexico and Ecuador. On Wednesday, we will have a discussion, a discussion on adoption of 5G in the region, the future opportunities, projections. It will be a very interesting session for both of us. We will have representatives of governments of Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil and Argentina. On Thursday, we will also have a session on the change of the COVID-19 pandemic in line with all of us due to the pandemic, which are the new technologies, projections and we have representatives of Ericsson, Facebook, ISOC, GSMI and LACNIC. It seems that we have to return to Mr. Sharafat. Please pass the mic. Yes, thank you very much. And my apologies for the technical difficulty. Yes, if we can continue with this slide. I was saying that since 4G traffic is on the rise, a fiber-based transport network is very desirable. So even if we do not have 5G, I strongly recommend that we enhance and upgrade the transport network because, as I said, the 4G traffic is on the rise. And now this enhancement of the transport network is very desirable, which can also be used in 5G network with higher traffic volumes. Network operators also need to upgrade their wireless transport networks in order to provide sufficient capacity. Etsy is recommended to use millimeter waves, which can provide up to 10 gigahertz bandwidth in wireless links. Gigabit passive optical networks, or G-ponds, are already deployed in many network operators, but cannot fulfill both capacity and latency requirements of 5G. Its successor is NG-ponds, too. As an alternative, standardization of 50 gigabits per second or 100 gigabits per second of PON is underway. Ethernet interfaces should also be upgraded to increase capacity. And gigabit internet interfaces shall be upgraded to 10 gigabits per second or 25 gigabits per second for front hall interfaces. The transport network is very challenging in CIRA due to the strict requirements in terms of data rate and latency. Enhanced CPRI, the CPIR, stands for Common Public Radio Interface. So eCPRI is introduced for the front hall network in 5G, which exploits functional splitting to reduce latency and data rate requirements for any given service as compared to CPRI. I'm not finished with the previous slide yet. Can you go back? Yes. So SDN brings many benefits, such as flexibility, scalability, and agility for the transport network and can also be used for deploying efficient transport network slicing. Network slices are realized by coordinating transport network management system and end-to-end management system. Transport network management system can be implemented via SDN controller. To evolve a legacy transport network into SDN-based transport network, both its hardware and architecture should be upgraded. Now we go to the next slide. So in general, for the end-to-end deployment options, it's based on the standalone mode or on the non-standalone mode. In the standalone mode, ENBs or GNBs handle both data plane and control plane. In the non-standalone, go back please to the previous slide. Thank you. In the non-standalone mode, the data plane traverses both ENBs or GNBs. When the core is EPC, ENBs handle the control plane, which means that the ENBs are the anchor and GNBs handle the data plane. When the core is 5GC, either next generation ENBs or GNBs can be the anchor. Standalone and non-standalone options are as follows. Option one, which we refer to in this slide, is the starting point for migration from today's 4G network and refers to the standalone LTE radio network and the EPC control. Option two is for the last stage of end-to-end deployment in which GNBs operate in the standalone mode and core network is 5GC. Network operators can provide independent network to vertical customers in an efficient and flexible manner. In option three, core network is EPC in the non-standalone mode, but ENBs and EPCs must be upgraded to support GNB, GNB dual connectivity and high capacity. Also ENBs are the anchor. ENBB services and 5GL devices are supported. Random level internet working between ENBs and GNBs is needed, and both deployment time and cost are low. In option four, GNBs are the anchor and operate in the non-standalone mode with next generation ENBs. The core network is 5G, 5GC. Besides, ENBs must be upgraded to support 5GC signaling and interfaces. The deployment time and cost are both high in option four. In option five, ENB operates in the standalone mode, and core network is 5GC. It does not support millimeter waveband and end-to-end network slicing. Option five can be used to deploy 5G in rural or urban areas to offer low latency services with 5GC. Finally, in option seven, GNBs operate in the non-standalone mode with ENBs. The core network is 5GC, and ENBB services, and some URLC use cases are supported depending on the 5GC features. Next, this table shows different paths for nationwide 5G, E5G deployment. A network operator may choose an option for a given location depending on traffic volumes and future forecasts. For example, option five for rural areas, and option three with millimeter waves for hot spots. Selection of a path depends on some key factors, such as time to marketing, capex, optics considerations, utilization of future proof technologies, business trends, and existing facilities. As can be seen, choosing a path depends on several factors, such as the network size, location, availability of 5G-enabled devices, and the expected demand for 5G services in different deployment stages. For instance, the path in the second row is for tier one operators, and the path in the first row is for tier two, tier three operators. Next slide, please. Now we cover radio access network. And for radio access network, the initial deployment of 5G-RAN is via the non-standalone mode, followed by the standalone mode. For 5G-RAN deployment, one needs to consider the availability of 5G spectrum, the geographical coverage of 5G, as well as 5G-RAN architecture and technologies. In this table, we present different choices for 5G-RAN. 5G and E5G spectrum is divided into three segments of the band, namely below 1 gigahertz, 1 to 6 gigahertz, and above 6 gigahertz. In order to deploy the MVB aspect GSMA and 3GPP, 80 to 100 megahertz in mid-band, which is 3.5 gigahertz, and 1 gigahertz in millimeter bands are needed. When mid-band is not available, 80 megahertz can be freed by reforming. Go back to the previous slide, please. When mid-band is not available, 80 megahertz can be freed by reforming, or by dynamic spectrum sharing, or by acquiring more spectrum in the lower 2.6 gigahertz band. For instance, if the operator selects choice 2 in phase 1, it can provide 5G data rate for the end user, and in the second phase, can provide all 5G services. In the third phase, it can enhance 5G capacity and coverage. Next slide, please. Now we come to an interesting question. Is 5G harmful to your health? In order to answer this question, we begin by saying that human exposure to electromagnetic field, or EMF, is at the topic of interest. And ITUD study group 2 via question 7.2 is studying this topic. The scientific basis for limiting radio frequency exposure include two biological mechanisms, nerve stimulation, which is instantaneous for below 10 megahertz, and thermal effect, which is averaged over time, measured by specific absorption rate, or SAR. There are a number of different international organizations and institutes who are currently are heavily involved with setting guidelines for safe exposure. Go back to the previous slide, please. For safe exposure to 5G radio frequencies, first is the International Commission for Non-Ironizing Radiation Protection, which is called also ICNIRP. They have produced the guidelines for limiting exposure to time varying electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields up to 300 gigahertz, which is way above the 5G spectrum. They published the latest guidelines in 2020. Next is the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, also known as IEEE, which they have a standard for safety levels with respect to human exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields from 0 hertz to 300 gigahertz. Their standard is referred to as IEEE C95.1 back to 2019 standard. The third entity is the International Electro-Electrotechnical Commission, or IEEE C. And they have a number of technical reports and standards, which you can see on this slide. Next slide, yes. So the main international standards for measuring SAR in human head are IEEE C62209-1, and IEEE 1528. Also in ITU, we have ITUTK series recommendations and their related K supplements. In addition, ITU recommendation sector, they have a report, ITURSM.SM.2452. As I said, there are some guidelines. And predominantly, the 2020 guideline by TICNIP is being very applied significantly. However, if countries are more sensitive, they can set more restrictive and precautionary limits. And that has been practiced in some countries. Go back to the previous slide, please. Yes. So administrations are encouraged to follow ITNIP guidelines for IEEE standards or set more restrictive limits if they wish. The best practice is to follow ITNIP 2020 guidelines. And this is the outcome of ITUD question 7-2 in ITUD study group 2. Next slide, please. So in this slide, we show that there are different options for the deployment of 5G radio access networks, depending on the traffic and usage in any given location. It is more cost-effective to start 5G RAM deployment in locations with more users, such as hotspots. Please note that end-to-end 5G connectivity is needed for transmitting and receiving users. When a user is in an area not covered by 5G RAM, she cannot have 5G services, although she may have a 5G device in her hands. Please also note that for economic reasons, 5G deployment in rural areas is the last stage in nationwide 5G deployment. So we come to the last slide. In conclusion, 5G deployment is done in three steps. First, core network should be 5G ready. This can be done mostly by hardware software upgrades. Second, transport network should be upgraded to handle new excessive traffic and avoid bottlenecks. Third is the radio access network should be upgraded to connect 5G devices and applications. 5G, can I go back to the previous slide? 5G deployment is time-consuming and will require careful planning. This is something that I want to emphasize. We cannot have a 5G network overnight. So 5G deployment requires hardware software upgrades in existing 4G networks for 5G compatibility. 5G deployment requires new hardware software for 5G sites. And finally, 5G deployment requires new spectrum. So we come to the end of my presentation. And I would be happy to answer any question that you may have. Thank you very much for your excellent presentation. You're reaching very informative. I would like to open the floor if any of the attendees has any question. Yes, I can see from India. There is one question from Ms. Preet. Can you set the question, please? Can I chime in? Yes. Yes, I can hear you. Thank you so much for this informative session at the outset. I'd like to take the opportunity for providing such an insight. I would like to know about the use case study of 5G in India. What do you think of when will 5G be deployed in India, given the current scenario? I'm pretty and I'm complete. Is this a question to me? Should I answer this question? Yes, yes. Well, the question is on the timing of 5G deployment in India. Of course, it depends on each country when 5G would be deployed. As I said, 5G has different stages. The first is the core network. You have to upgrade your core network first. Otherwise, the traffic would be so huge that the core network would be collapsing. So in that respect, it is recommended to upgrade the core network first and make it 5G ready. Then the transport network. And finally, the radio access network. When this would happen in any country, of course, it depends on the policies and resources available to the operators. My recommendation is that they should start with hot spots where the traffic is heavy and many users are there because they would generate the revenue needed to enhance and expand the 5G network. I suspect because of the heavy demand in India, specifically in metropolitan areas, such as Delhi and Bombay and other places, there would be trials and initial deployments to be enhanced and expanded quickly. As to the timing, I'm not aware of what India has done to make 5G ready, to make the core network 5G ready. But I'm sure that they have taken the necessary steps to actually make 5G services available to their citizens. Thank you. I think now we have a question from Ghana, Mr. Abodalai and Tixba. Can I give you an advice? Thank you. My question goes to Mr. Ahmad. I want to find out what recommendation would you give to regulatory administrations to accelerate the adoption of 5G in rural areas? That's a difficult question, but I try. As I said, rural areas are the last stage in deployment of 5G, mainly because the revenue generated in rural areas are not sufficient to cover the costs of 5G deployment. So any country, the best practice in many countries is to start with metropolitan areas and then enhance and expand into rural and remote areas. What should be done in order to do that? I think the regulatory authorities can put in place some specific requirements when they issue licenses for 5G or when they make a frequency spectrum available for 5G services. They can attach to their license some requirements as to the timing of deployment of 5G and upgrading of their existing 4G networks. So it depends on the country. And there are, of course, several options that we can consider. I would put my email address for all of you if you have further questions, you can reach me. I just put it on the chat, but I would be happy to answer any further questions. I think we have one more question from Guyana, Mr. Dem Roberts. And maybe this is the last question before we can close this session. I didn't hear the question. Mr. Roberts. Oh, thanks. I didn't hear you, sir. I have a question in deployment of 5G in the populated area, the metropolitan area. Or do you recommend, do you have a recommendation of the amount of towers that could be placed within a particular area? Because what I recognize is that 5G technology, apparently, it requires a lot more physical infrastructure and towers. Apparently, the range is not that wide. So is there a regulatory or recommended number of antennas or transmission systems you would recommend for a particular space? Or would you recommend, or would you do that based on the population? Thank you. That's an excellent question. As you may have recalled, I said that there are three different bands for 5G. The low band, below 1 gigahertz, and also the mid band from 1 gigahertz to 6 gigahertz. And then the high band, which is millimeter waves. Of course, in millimeter waves, because of the characteristics of electromagnetic waves, they attenuate very quickly in short distance. So we need to have much more, as you mentioned, base stations. Now, there may be a significant time difference between deployment of 5G in low band and in mid band until we get to the time that we really need millimeter waves. Until that time, my own recommendation is that you may not need that many more towers and base stations. You may be able to maybe relocate some of the towers in your existing coverage of 4G in order to provide a more continuous coverage of 5G. This is, of course, with respect to metropolitan areas. In rural areas, this situation may be different. So it appears to me that the initial stage of 5G, you don't need to have that many new base stations. You can install 5G equipment in the existing base stations and have 4G and 5G running in parallel. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you for the questions for the answers as well to the questions. We can see 5G is one of the revolution of the interconnection with low latency and very high connectivity, high speed. And as we did several studies here in the region and the recommendations towards implementation of an adoption of 5G in the region, we are recommending in the study to have a national plan on implementation of 5G. As I was mentioning during the presentation, it's not just the deployment of a new technology as it was 4G, 3G, and now it's more oriented to having a global adoption nationally with the participation of several stakeholders and to identify the different industries where the 5G will be applied and the final customers from business to business to build more smart cities and more rural areas. So since we are just about to finish the time for interpretation, I would like to thank you, everyone, for today and for your participation today and your active participation with the questions. And I want to invite you again for tomorrow's meeting and Wednesday and Thursday meetings global and for the Americas region. And as I mentioned before, we will be discussing about the further deployment of 5G and the opportunities, the challenges, and as well how we can face a digital gap and with the adoption of the technology that is 5G and as well the new paradigm of online life which we will have the projection of new technologies by the industry. So I thank you very much for today and I would like to close this session and I think especially to the speakers, the keynote speech, excellent, brilliant and very enriching. Thank you, everyone and have a nice day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ahmed. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Bruno. Good to see you again. Good to see you. Good to see you. There was a hand raised by Oman with that present. Thank you very much. Have a nice evening. Goodbye. Record.