 Welcome to all WISIS stakeholders to the WISIS Forum 2018, also to those who are following us remotely and are present with us here physically in Geneva at the ITU headquarters. I have here with me today the high level track facilitators of WISIS Forum 2018 who facilitated the 14 high level tracks based on the thematics identified with reference to the WISIS action lines and the sustainable development goals. I'd like to start with Mr. Pawan Dughal who moderated a very interesting session on cyber security action line C5. Pawan, what were the key takeaways of your session? The key takeaways were that cyber security is central to our daily lives. It's going to be an important element for governance across the world. The experts realized that there are no complete answers, there are questions to be asked but cyber security needs to be inculcated as a way of life. It was also highlighted that cyber security is not just a governmental responsibility alone and that all stakeholders have to contribute in strengthening the protection and preservation of cyber security as a paradigm. Thank you very much Pawan. Just as you highlighted yesterday, your session was a clear case of unity and diversity. Thank you very much. I have Moira with us here today. She represents the technical community at IEEE. Moira, what were the most fascinating things in your multi-stakeholder panel? It was such an interesting panel that generated a vibrant debate. Thanks Gitanjali. Yes, we had a great discussion with a group of government representatives, civil society and also industry. It started with a very important reminder that really, while the ICTs are what's exciting, the social impact is what matters and that framed the discussion. We talked about many examples about how governments are trying to bring ICTs to underserved communities and remote areas. In Zimbabwe, for example, they're leveraging post offices. Ukraine talked about their open data roadmap and program and the progress they've had there. And then we also talked about how underrepresented stakeholders need to be included and efforts need to be made to not only have them included as users at the end of the process but have them at the table as developers and participants. Thank you. Thank you very much, Moira. Of course, everything that's happening at the WSIS Forum, it aligns ICTs with the Sustainable Development Goals like food, water, education and all the other goals. So I think your session contributed and strengthened that line. Thank you very much. Hello, Natalia. How are you? Thank you. Natalia, you are here for the first time. Tell us what your experience was and what was the main highlight of your session. Thank you very much. Yes, it's my first time in WSIS Forum and it has been a great experience. It's fantastic to have so many diverse minds and diverse stakeholders that have the opportunity to discuss different topics and all with the same goal that is bridging the digital divides. My session was actually very interesting and it had a lot of speakers taking the topic of digital economy and trade from different angles. But what was very clear is that applications, data applications and e-commerce and even futuristic innovations like robotics are part of what is going to transform the digital economy and it's going to help bridging all the digital divides around the world. And that's it. Very important point captured here is ICT solutions for SDGs. How can we use innovation to facilitate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and this is very relevant for my next speaker, Pierre, who represents the private sector. Pierre, what is your experience as a private sector representative out here and did you see some innovations being talked about in your session? Thank you. My session was extremely dynamic, lots of exchange with multi-stakeholders represented public sector, private sector were on the stand. We discussed best practices and this was the most amazing exchange on stage from smart villages in Niger to government clouds in Azerbaijan to the PKI successful initiative in Oman. All that exchanged between the different countries and the stakeholders in the room. So I encourage you to come online and look at this session. Thank you very much Pierre. It's not only about innovation and ICTs but also in the policies, the ICT policies that's a good point you highlighted. Hello Moira, you're representing IFIP, the civil society partner in the high level track. What were some of the challenges and some of the opportunities that were captured in your session? I think what struck me about my session was the commitment of all the delegates to actually achieve the action lines and hence the sustainable development goals. Certainly there were lots of e-government initiatives explained. In Poland they have the open data access of public data that they're very proud of. In India they have a huge focus on green initiatives but ultimately it's all looking at achieving the same thing from a different point of view. We also had someone who explained to us the real power of virtual and augmented reality in terms of education, in terms of medicine and that it's not just for playing games. So in the end I think that my quite small panel covered quite a lot of ground around what they're doing, the investment opportunities that ensue from the great strides that they're making in working towards achieving the action lines and I think that that is a power of action lines. Thank you. Thank you very much Moira, indeed the power of the action lines to influence the SDG process to help speed up the achievement of the sustainable development goals. I'd now like to get an academic view of what happened during the sessions and our academic high level track facilitator Crystal from Rwanda. She I'd invite her to share some of the perspectives shared in her session and some of the dynamic interactions that happened there. Thank you very much. It's my first time at the WSIS Forum so I'm really honored and privileged to be here. We had a very dynamic session, very rich discussion on bridging digital divides. I think two key takeaways, one that we can go further faster if we align our priorities and pool our resources so that was a sentiment that was expressed among all stakeholders present and the other one was the focus on trying to reach the farthest first especially for developing countries that have such a large percentage of their populations living in rural and remote areas. This is one way that we can really accelerate the SDG so it's really been a pleasure to contribute to the discussion and I think one of the case examples that was shared that we thought was very profound was Senegal, a country from West Africa that has very well aligned with the action lines of the WSIS process and the SDGs. They're now offering free high-speed internet in all public universities and so this was one of the main cases that was shared and we were you know just really pleased to see the progress that's been made. Thank you very much. Thank you, Crystal. In fact, the main goal of all WSIS stakeholders who are here is to basically reach the last mile. We have here Mr. Alfredo Ronchi who represents the civil society. Mr. Ronchi has been participating in the WSIS forums since several years. What was different this year Mr. Ronchi and what were the key takeaways from your session? Thank you, Mr. Angelini. Yes, I'm here since 2003, not all the way then all the time but anyway I'm subject to a kind of addiction to the WSIS. It's a very interesting forum and there are quite a lot of interesting things. It was a very interesting evolution since the beginning of this process and now we are facing the new days problems related to the implementation of information society. In my session, session 14, about capacity building, media, e-learning and similar things, one of the key topics was of course the implementation of information society to the capacity building process. And there were different case studies showcased by the different speakers. We had some contribution from Mauritius that is pushing this process, creating specific academies for ICTs. Then they created a polytechnical school to complete this added value chain in that field. We had some nice gain contribution from Rwanda about the implementation of capacity building there and some other from the United Emirates. And there were the only ones showcasing a wide set of different projects and programs in order to involve much more people in this process. We established some specific procedures in order to self-assess the engagement and the way to achieve the goals and the way to mitigate problems in order to reach better results. A second topic about emergent, it was about the power of information, digital information, the power of media in shaping the, let's say, the intentions and the votes of people and this is one of the key topics. And we heard that the news is something in this field. Thank you very much for interviewing me. Thank you very much, Mr. Ranchi. Yes, indeed, capacity building and skills development. Extremely crucial for the success of any project or any outcomes. Dr. Anuradha Rao, what were the key highlights in your session and were there some challenges that you particularly identified? Thank you, Gita Anjali. The session on bridging digital divides was a very interesting one. And I think what came out of that was that all the panelists seem to agree that we are looking at different aspects of the digital divide. So I think the idea now is to move beyond looking at the digital divide in this monolithic way. So go beyond access, go beyond infrastructure and connectivity that people usually think about, but look at newer indicators of digital inequality. So look at data, look at content, skills, capacity building. The other things that my fellow panelists are talking about, I think the idea was to try and make it a more dynamic way of looking at the digital divide and then how to overcome it is the next step. Yes. Thank you, Anuradha. Yes, overcoming the digital divide. And that's why we are all here to facilitate an environment where we can work together to achieve all our goals. Hello, Christina. So you are the youth representative in our high-level facilitators. How did you feel? And do you think it's important for young people to be associated with this process? Thank you, Yudhantjali. Well, I felt honored and nervous, but mostly honored. It was a great pleasure to be here. I do believe that young generation should get involved in these processes. The YSS process in particular is of great interest because ICTs are continuously developing and all the young generations, we have the chance to grow with them. So greater education in these fields would be of great help for sustainable development. This leads me to my session. It was session 10 on inclusiveness and access to information and knowledge for all. I can only tell that the main conclusion that we got was that greater education for the younger generations and other people would implement greater access for information and knowledge. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Christina. It's our effort this year to engage the youth with the UN processes and in particular the WISIS process because we know that we cannot do anything without engaging the youth. This is a good start and we hope that next year we'll have more high-level track facilitator representing the youth. Hello Deepak. You also represent the private sector. You have been working in the area of ICT for development, of course in developing countries as well. Can you please share some ideas on the role of an event like the WISIS forum in this regard and what were the key takeaways from your session as well? So this is right from its inception. It has been a great platform from 2003 to 2005, of course the first two phases and beyond that of course as an annual forum. So as a multi-stakeholder approach that has been evolving here and has actually spawned not just here, now today we have more than 100 IGF events around the world, not just one annual IGF. So that's one of the contributions of WISIS. The other one I would say is that this whole thing around alignment with the SDGs and this exercise which is ensuing but it's continuing about aligning the WISIS action items with the SDGs for 2030. And as far as the sessions are concerned, in our session we had this whole focus around partnerships across the government, academia, private sector, civil society, everybody. And also the realization that ICTs are enabler to come in terms of bridging the inequities which could be social, economic, spatial or even geographic. And lastly, everybody realized that this is something for which we need better tracking. So we do need to develop better metrics in terms of tracking our progress. Thank you. Thank you very much Deepak indeed it's really crucial for the private sector to play an important role in the ICTs for sustainable development. I have with me Ayanna Samuels who moderated the high level track on gender mainstreaming. Ayanna you're an aerospace engineer and a very huge role model for women and girls not only in Jamaica but I think all over the world. So what were the key takeaways from your session and what do we need to close this gender ICT gap? What do we need to do together? Thank you Gitanjali it really is an honor to be here as a first timer representing the Caribbean and the issue of gender equity in tech is very close to my heart. The first point we brought up is that there are a multiplicity of factors that affect the gender gap. There are issues around socioeconomic status, geography, race and as such there's no panacea. We need hard data around which we can form policies to close the gap. To this effect one of our private sector stakeholders Facebook spoke about the Internet inclusivity index which was worked upon with the economists which showed that of the 86 countries polled 80% have a gender gap in favor of men. So there really is a lot of work to do and we spoke about the fact that when countries have specific measurable initiatives to close the gap we are seeing successes. So there was a very optimistic tone that emanated from the session as a result but there are realities we have to keep in mind. You and women mentioned that 98 million girls are out of school and as a result there is a second chance educational initiative they have at play which really inspires me because that's the beginning of it all. And lastly Italy mentioned that they have a STEM in the city initiative that really brings ICT and its benefits to the citizenry en masse and I think that's the value. You have to be going from the ground up having people understand what this can do for them in all facets of their lives and having people realize that we all have a role to play in closing the gap. So we continue to move forward. I'm inspired. Thank you very much Ayanna. It's our effort every year to ensure that there is a gender balance. All men and women have equal access to all the opportunities that the ICTs provide. So this is our joint responsibility to make sure that we have an equal world. I have now here with me Mike Nelson. He has been associated with the process since 2003. Mike can we as the WISIS secretariat be proud of what we've achieved and what more is to be done and how do you assess the evolution and how was this captured during your panel? I think that people here and this team in particular can be very proud of what was accomplished. I've been involved in a lot of discussions over the years about financing for ICT but our panel was unique because it wasn't about financing ICT. It was about financing development that uses ICT. So our focus was on how to use the technology to dramatically save money and reduce the amount of financing needed and to make it possible for teams to form online around the world and deliver their service more effectively. I was very excited about what happened and we also use the technology. We use Twitter to tell the world about what our panel was doing to get questions and to get the discussion going. Hashtag WISIS 5 and I'm very happy again to have been here again for WISIS Forum and to be part of this group. Thank you very much Mike. It's been 15 years since the first phase of WISIS in 2003. Since when we adopted the Geneva plan of action and we can see that the same spirit in fact the strength and commitment from WISIS stakeholders to work towards achieving the WISIS action lines and to show the linkages between the WISIS action lines and the SDGs. We congratulate all the high-level track facilitators of WISIS Forum 2018 for their hard work and for the excellent outcomes that they've captured and they've been really you know they should be proud of themselves because they were selected out of the different stakeholder communities that are represented at WISIS. Thank you very much and we hope to bring you more news and information in WISIS Forum 2019. Thank you and goodbye.