澳门六合彩

Speaker Quotes

• Sukaina Al-Nawrawi, Social Affairs Expert, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

  1. 鈥淎s we all know, over the past few decades, digital technologies have dramatically transformed the societies and economies around the world, and of course, the Arab region included. And today, they become an essential part of our modern culture and they cover almost all aspects of our lives. But in the Arab region鈥撯�� I mean there are so many developing countries鈥撯�� we know the variance between developed countries and developing countries and we know the variance between the regions of the world in terms of benefitting from the added values of these technologies, which basically create what we call the digital divide.... Now, if we look into numbers in our region, we noticed unfortunately that almost every single indicator shows that there is a significant difference between developed and developing countries in terms of accessing and using digital technologies.鈥�
  2. 鈥淗alf of the Arab countries, in terms of development of the digital infrastructure, are below the world average. Which takes us to the digital divide in our region (in the Arab region) or more widely in the Middle East and North Africa region, and the problem that has a geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic dimension. And not only that鈥撯�� it also has different types. It has a divide at the local level, at the national level, at the regional, and the gender divide, the age divide, the income divide. And the digital gender divide is of high importance to the region鈥� I would like to bring in the discussion on the importance of gender equality in the diaspora of digitization鈥he MENA region has the highest gender gap and if development keeps at the same pace, we will need, in this region, more than 140 years to bridge this gap, which is alarming. And the main areas we have to focus on are economic participation and political participation and technologies. Digital technologies offer key opportunities to enhance the performance [of workers].鈥�
  3. 鈥�The private sector plays an important role in bridging the digital divide and bridging the gender digital divide, but not on its own. Rather, from the development perspective, hand in hand with government and civil society, which in many cases -- in the Arab region at least, and to my knowledge, in most of the regions in the world -- play an important role in enhancing [digital literacy]. So, what role can they play?... We  need to focus on increasing affordability, because one of the main internet adoption barriers in developing countries and our region is affordability. A large group of people cannot really access the internet because of the high cost involved; the cost of smartphones, good laptops, computers are expensive, despite technology being a basic need鈥� There is a need for empowering the users. When we talk about empowering the users, we鈥檙e talking about building the capacities and the capabilities to see the full potential of digital technologies and their impact.鈥�
  4. 鈥淕lobally, [with] private sector investments, there鈥檚 a huge difference between the fund investments that the private sector makes in startups that are founded and headed by men compared to those that are founded or headed by women.鈥�

• Zena Kebede, Technical Program Manager, Microsoft Airband Initiative

  1. "Undeniably, what we have noticed is that there are two major problems regardless of the technology. One is that there needs to be, worldwide, a clear and stable regulatory environment in order to bridge this digital divide. And the second piece is that all innovation and technology that we use to bridge the digital divide needs to be affordable and accessible to people to use them so they can think whatever amount of payments they are making for the services they are getting are justifiable."
  2. "[The COVID-19 pandemic] presents a significant need for those working on the broadband gap and bridging the digital divide to move quickly to advance infrastructure, tools, and services, to connect as many people [...]. The impact of COVID-19 has shown that the African countries鈥� development can either be a really massive barrier to development or it can also spark lights of fire to view this as an important learning curve for innovation, investment chains, policy, and reform policy [...]. We have learned that it is now a luxury rather than a necessity to have a technology policy that fast-tracks the adoption of technologies [...]. We need to upgrade our latest infrastructure [and] we need to connect those areas that don鈥檛 have access today to participate today in this digital economy. On top of that, we need to use technology to understand the pandemic itself and also address the issues that are coming from the pandemic."
  3. "Specifically from the private sector point of view, we need to continue research on innovative technologies. When I say innovative technologies, including how we use the spectrum as is. For example, in the models that we follow today, the spectrum is a finite resource. The spectrum is scarce and it's a finite resource obviously, but it is scarce and it鈥檚 not enough for others. But we need to have a shift in mindset; instead of having that mindset view the spectrum as a resource, we need to think of the spectrum as a dynamic resource and as a tool that we can use the spectrum to have ubiquitous services."

• Steven Weber, Associate Dean and Head of School at the UC Berkeley School of Information

  1. 鈥淲e鈥檙e living through a period of great, fantastic new technology that鈥檚 creating enormous wealth. But the history of technology is that when you get these technology revolutions, at least in their first iterations, they often exacerbate (rather than decrease) inequality. And they鈥檙e generally counterproductive for global liberalism as well. So, if you think about railroads in the 1800鈥檚, powering growth in the US and other economies, it was really great if you were living in the nodes where the railroad tracks came together. But it wasn鈥檛 so great if you were living in small towns off those nodes, where economies and societies were devastated.鈥�
  2. 鈥淲hat barriers now remain? My answer, with the best evidence I can muster from some natural experiments, is language. So, in colloquial terms, you can standardize parts for the auto industry and ship them around the world. But it鈥檚 much harder to do that with complex ideas and tacit knowledge, even when you and I do speak the same language. And if you and I speak really different languages, and we have to use slow and expensive and often inaccurate human translators -- we鈥檝e all experienced this at one time or another -- it鈥檚 extremely clunky. That鈥檚 a transaction cost that limits economic exchange and exchange of ideas. So how do we lower that barrier? Well, the answer, in theory, is of course machine translation鈥� except when you look under the hood, the technology that drives machine translation isn鈥檛 universal and how it works really matters, because what we think of as machine translation today is not universal and it鈥檚 not going to become that any time soon.
  3.  鈥淭here are lots and lots of different ways to price different parts of the value chain, and I would like to see the firm鈥檚 experiment with all of those things, because we don鈥檛 really, really have a tangible -- I mean a granular grasp -- on how people would like to monetize from their or pay for access. So, let鈥檚 create a whole bunch of different ways to do it. If you鈥檝e recently bought an iPhone 12, you recognize there鈥檚 a very small number of possible ways to actually pay for that, and there鈥檚 a lot of opacity on what the actual business model is. So, let鈥檚 create more ways, and make it real transparent and do the best we can in that regard. That鈥檚 a form of innovation that鈥檚 as important as anything having to do with technology.鈥�