IGF 2016 - Day 2 - Main Hall - Sustainable Development, Internet and Inclusive Growth

 

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Jalisco, Mexico, from 5 to 9 December 2016. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

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>> YOLANDA MARTINEZ:  Good morning, everyone.  I hope that you are all enjoying your time in Mexico in Jalisco State and Zapopan area.  My name is Yolanda Martinez.  I'm the head of the Digital Government on the Ministry of Public Administration, and it is my pleasure today to be with you on this second day of activities of our Internet Governance Forum activities.  Allow me to remind you this is an open dialogue space to share ideas.  Therefore it is important that we all understand what others are trying to share with us.  That is why I would like to invite you the headsets and interpretation services available for all of you in this session, I so I make a kindly reminder that the translator devices.  Although you have the transcript in English most of the time but I want to make sure everyone can hear and be able to understand all participants' ideas and proposals.

I would like to invite you to actively participate during the session.  All ideas, concerns and reflections contribute to the generation of innovative solutions, to other stakeholders and projects to which we can create partnerships that would help us fulfill the access use and fulfillment gap in the use of ICTs and the Internet.  The main session today is devoted on Sustainable Development, Internet and Inclusive Growth.  We will have three intervention blocks.  One will be addressed to capacity building.  Another one about the inclusion of women and children, and another one on the development of local content.

The access to ICTs has increased considerably in the world.  Regretfully not everybody has the same equal footing in terms of participation.  Yesterday, Secretary‑General told us we had to work as a team.  The Internet Community, multiple stakeholders.  We need to make sure that no one is left behind from the benefits of the Information Society, and the knowledge society.  According to the United Nations, 53% of the world's population lacks from Internet access.  This represents 3.9 billion people that are excluded from Internet's benefits.  Approximately one out of 2 people with no access to Internet live in developing countries.  75% of African inhabitants have no Internet access, according to ITU, and in the area of Europe, we see, as well, a Regional gap.  In Latin America and the Caribbean, 1/3 of the population has no Internet access.  Therefore, we have a very important commitment as a region to work as a team, the Internet Community, to make sure that we generate innovative ideas to fill these gaps.

The digital divide is a gender gap.  The percentage of Internet penetration is way higher in men compared to women in every world's region, and even more in Africa, with a 23% of difference between Internet access for men and women.

According to global kids online from ITU, out of the total Internet users, one out of 3 is a boy or a girl.  Therefore, we have a major responsibility to make sure that the use that we give to such an important resource like the Internet and ICTs is adequate for the population at large.

The adoption of ICT based services is the key to fulfill the SDGs.  We can do a lot to fill these gaps, and specifically, to make sure that the 2030 agenda is actionable and reachable.  If we use the Internet and ICTs as our best enablers.  For this session, we're going to have two Moderators, Dr. Youssef, CEO of Ogero Telecom and Robert Pepper from connectivity from Facebook.  I would like to give the floor to Dr. Pepper.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you very much, Yolanda.  So what we're going to do to try to make this as interactive as possible, in the spirit of the Internet Governance Forum, even with the room structured the way it is, Dr. Youssef and I are going to take turns moderating from the stage, and then for the discussion, one of us will be in the audience to take your questions so that we can really make this interactive.

We've designed this to be not long presentations, but for each of the sections of the Program of the ‑‑ each subsection, we're going to have a set of lightning round presentations.  2, 3 minutes or 1.5 minutes.  We've worked with the panelists.  Some are going to present on one or another, and sometimes multiple subsessions.

So with that, let's get started.  And the first session, the first segment, is focusing on inclusion, and as Yolanda said, it's inclusion for women and youth, and there are wide disparities and wide gaps in gender use online, and therefore, a gap in the benefits of having ‑‑ being connected to the Internet.

So we're going to start ‑‑ actually, Yolanda, you're going to start.  Or did you ‑‑ well, okay, so you've already made your initial statement.

So we're then going to ‑‑ actually, we're going to start with Lenni Montiel, who's the ‑‑ at UNDESA as the Assistant Secretary‑General, and so with great pleasure and actually we're here because of all the great work of UNDESA supporting the IGF.  Thank you.  Please.

>> LENNI MONTIEL:  Welcome, everybody.  It is a great pleasure to join you here this morning.  This is the second day of the meeting.  This is the 11th meeting in which we are all together developing a new way of interacting about such an important issue as the Internet Governance.  Our exchange today can inform the critical ongoing debate how Internet can contribute to inclusive growth and Sustainable Development.  The sessions you're going to participate in are fundamentally important for the implementation of the agenda of 2030.  In fact, I recall participating in last year's main session in Joao Pessoa on the same thing and I applaud the organizers for creating linkages and continuing the multistakeholder debate between annual IGF sessions because that provides the possibility of moving the forward.

Let me say that since last year, we have made positive strides towards fostering an environment in which the Internet is contributing positively to achieving the SDGs.  However, many obstacles still remain, and unfortunately, the digital divide continues to persist.  One of the ambitious targets is to achieve universal and affordable Internet access in LDCs, in Least Developed Countries, by 2020, and in that respect, the question of inclusion of women and youth, local content, and capacity building are essential.

If gaps persist between those who access the Internet's opportunities and those who do not we won't be able to achieve the inclusive growth we're all striving for.  So the widening gap between developed and developing countries needs to be urgently addressed.  We need to think together here at the IGF about how to create an enabling policy environment.  We need to enhance international and Multistakeholder Cooperation to improve accessibility and affordability.  Only when empowering young people and marginalized populations we will create an Information Society which truly enables inclusive growth.

The development of skill and engaged young people who can create local online content and services for example is essential.  Let's call on policymakers everywhere to support professional skill development, innovation, and entrepreneurship.  Digital literacy is needed for all citizens.

We are already more than one year into the implementation period of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development.  The high level political Forum on Sustainable Development some months ago took stock of our efforts.  The IGF community can play an important role.  You all represent an important respective, representatives from governments, Civil Society, the private sector, the UN system, and many other stakeholders.  All three pillars of Sustainable Development ‑‑ economic, social, and environment ‑‑ need Internet as key catalyst.  Internet connectivity and growth can be used to accelerate Economic Development by facilitating e‑Commerce.  It can move social development forward by overcoming critical obstacles such as social exclusion.

All of these challenges make our deliberations capacity building efforts and cooperation within the IGF so crucial.  To bring about inclusive growth and driving the digital economy will require a focused effort from all of us.  I wish you a great success with this session.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  So we're now going to jump into the first of our subsessions on inclusion.  And Yolanda, this is where you're going to now do your intervention on inclusion in addition to having welcomed us so please go ahead.  Thank you.

>> YOLANDA MARTINEZ:  Thank you very much.  On continuing what we have shared today, I would like to share with you what I use most of my time and my energy to.  This is what I fully convince and dedication, I am responsible of actioning most of the National digital strategy actions, and digitizing Government services as one of the activities that I devote my time the most.  I believe that ICTs are the tool that we can use to reduce all gaps.  Latin America is not an equal region in the world.  We have many Mexicos, as Madam Lagunes said, but the only way to have a more equitable society and to allocate richness better and to generate more development opportunities for all is by guaranteeing that everyone has an equitable access to Government services.

The example that I chose for this session is Lupita's example.  Lupita is a single model, head of household, who was able to have access to a free of charge insurance that the Government grants when ‑‑ in the case that she dies and her children will be in a situation where they will be able to continue their studies.  This is part of the Social Development Ministry projects and it is part of our priorities in the year of digitizing services.  This process is 100% online anywhere in the world.  You only need Internet access, you only need an Internet device, and provided Lupita is aware that that is a service available for her.  And if Lupita knows how to use a computer to enter the contact data and fill the form and send it out and to have the certainty that if she dies, the State has a Program to guarantee that her kids will attend school.

This is an example to show that in order to provide inclusive development, we have to work as a team.  The Government is fully convinced to digitize the services that our society demands in every single Sector.  It is our commitment that 100% of all federal government services are provided online.  This is the most efficient way to democratize the access to services.

We don't want free of charge services only.  People need to be aware that they are entitled to that right, and we want all of our citizens able to use technologies to exercise such a right, and also to benefit from many social programs that are at their hands.  And sometimes they're unaware of them.  ICTs and the Internet serve as a major catalyst but we have to translate those in the improvement of people's living.

It doesn't matter if you have access, if people don't know how to use the Internet.  If they don't know how to use ICTs.  Access needs to be translated into better development conditions.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  And thank you for being exactly on time.  So just reminding the speakers that there's a countdown clock over there and that's great.  Again, another great example of what we're trying to do is look at very specific, very specific things and examples of success stories so that at the end of each session our Rapporteurs are going to draw out some of the really good practices that we've heard.

I don't believe that there's anything called a "best practice," because we have a menu of a lot of good practices so we're looking for really concrete, great examples in each one of these discussion areas that we can learn from and then make available to everybody.

Raul Echeberria from ISOC, you're next.  We were on an earlier panel together and he made it so that's great.  Raul?

>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  Thank you very much.  I think that I have one minute and a half, so it's challenging.

I think that we need to work on capacity building across many different areas for really connecting everybody, but connecting in a meaningful way.  This is building capacities on deploying infrastructure, on using infrastructure, for participating meaningfully in the Internet Governance debate, but mainly we need to build capacities for using the Internet for the benefit of the life of the people.

And this is why I think that we cannot speak about capacity‑building without speaking about empowering communities, and we have seen that in all our work across the world especially in the works that we do with the community networks, where we deploy the networks, we build capacities for the people building their own networks, for learning how to use the Internet but also for working on learning how to use the Internet for increasing their incomes, for having access to best services, for improving their lives, for building an Internet really of opportunities.  And this is why I say that in this area we have to talk about building capacities and empowering communities as one common theme.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Next, Gabriela ‑‑ by the way, for everybody, we can do just introduce yourself very briefly.  The bios are online so we don't want to use a lot of time.  But if everybody could just introduce themself as you start.

>> GABRIELA ROCHA:  Great.  Hello, how are you doing?  My name is Gabriela Rocha, the Executive Director of an organization by the name of Laboratoria Mexico.  We empower young women with low income.  We provide them with access to quality education and provide them with opportunities to be Web developers in the digital Sector.  As Yolanda well described, in the region regretfully we have inequalities and women are overrepresented in a population in which they are an underserved group.

We have young people who don't go to school or don't have a job and they represent 70%, one each out of three don't have income so that represents an endless list of problems starting with violence and their futures are in the hands of other people, and that is a problem, because they don't have economic independence.

At the same time this is a very critical social problem but there is a huge opportunity in the digital Sector.  It is the industry that grows the fastest in Latin America, and happily, to be a developer, you don't need a University degree.  You just need to write code, so that opens up a great deal of opportunities for our population that unfortunately don't have access to quality higher education.  Regretfully, quality higher education is a luxury in Latin America.

So what we decided to do at Laboratoria was to fill this gap between the social problem and use the talent of thousands of young women.  That talent is being wasted because they don't have access to good education opportunities, and this enormous potential is being used in the digital Sector.  So what we do, is we screen talented women.  Because no one is looking for them.  We train them in Web development for 6 months.  We are using a very innovative methodology, which is very agile and accessible for them because they have to pay after they finish the Program, once we find a quality job for them and they work as Web developers earning three times more as they used to earn.

We started in Peru two years ago, and now we're working in Mexico and Chile and we're willing to work in Jalisco.  We have ‑‑ we're active in Mexico City but we want to be here as well and in the last 25 seconds I would like to leave you with this:  I believe that one of the wonders that we have discovered in this process is the fact that it is possible indeed for a woman without any formal education, with low income and without any experience working with technology, in 6 months, that woman can become a Web developer.  She can contribute with her talent to this Sector and can contribute the transformation of her life and her family's so let's consider that when we talk about the inclusion of women and youth.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  And that's actually a great segue into Dr. Liu from China, because we're just hearing about women becoming developers, right, Web developers?  And Dr. Liu is, you know, one of the people leading some of the Science and Technology in China, so Dr. Liu?

>> CHUANG LIU:  Thank you.  I'm a member of the Committee on ICT for UN, Chinese Association for Science and Technology and a Professor of Chinese Academy of sciences.  Thank you for providing me such opportunity to address issues of the women and the Internet.

Perhaps very few countries like China in the world, the lady plays a so important role in the Internet history.  20 years ago, very few people in China knew the Internet.  No one else understood why China needed Internet, but she did.  In order to bring the Internet to China, she communicated with the Government officers, Chief engineers, private sector leaders, and finally, the first TCP/IP started in 1997.  Then she leaded the first Internet Program and founded The Internet Society of China.  She served the society as the President.  She was a member of ICANN, international Domain Name communities, and a member of Working Group of Internet Governance.  She also was Chairperson of the China National Committee for data.  She's a pioneer of Internet of China.  She's with the global connector.  The Internet history told us she changed China.  Up to the end of last year, 2015, there are 688 million people, Chinese people, using the internet in which almost 200 million people in the countryside, they use the Internet to improve their lives and most of them achieving the poverty free.

Ladies and gentlemen, the name of the lady is Madam Qiheng Hu.  Like a mother, not only she is the mother of the Internet of China.  She has been dedicated herself to the Internet, she gave all her love to the Internet.  She get me to come back to China after I got good training in America.  And dedicated to using the Internet.  Madam Hu is an example of ladies in The Internet Society.  She is an example of mine.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  That very much.  That was inspiring.  Daniel.

>> DANIEL ABADIE:  Good afternoon.  I am Daniel.  I come from the Government of Argentina.  62% of Argentina homes have a connection, which means that 38% don't.  20% of our youths between 20 and 29 years of age haven't finished high school, and 7 out of every 10 don't finish University.  Argentina is doing many things from the perspective of Civil Society and the Government in favor of inclusion especially having to do with children and women, everything that has to do with technology and Civil Societies that take technologies to women.  We can talk about an NGO that generates empowerment of youth in situations of poverties.  Men and women, they develop their abilities of testing and work with different companies where they carry out their work.

From the point of view of the State, what we do is give training in programming, online sales, and abilities based on the Internet trying to generate employment for women and we are also working in the educational areas and entrepreneurship with different schools, thinking about the future, thinking about production in Argentina is going from meats to services.

Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  ‑‑ on time.  Edmon Chung.

>> EDMON CHUNG:  Edmon from dotAsia.  My colleagues have already talked about some of the items about youth and the digital divide.  It's sometimes strange actually especially in the developed world to think about youth when we talk about inclusion, because really, they're at the forefront of the Internet, not ‑‑ we don't need to bring them in, they're already in.  They're probably more in than we are.  And but one of the things that is important is about ownership, I think in terms of ownership and empowerment, which I think is a very critical element leading into inclusion.  And here at IGF, I guess one of the aspects is about youth participation in Internet Governance and policy development for the Internet's own future, and that empowerment I think is important.

But just being open doors, I mean, the doors are open and if you look around you, the youth here, there is a lot of youth here, which has been built around ‑‑ over the years, but they needles capacity building.  Somebody needs to bring them in and that is part of the empowerment that is important in terms of youth inclusion, as well.

So two things really, to actually empower youth inclusion is the capacity building to allow them to actually effectively participate in Internet Governance, and also the ownership, having a sense of being able to influence the policies, not just having them around and teaching them what we know about the Internet but actually allowing these digital natives to have a say in our Internet policies in the future.  I think that's important in terms of inclusion.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Really good point.  It's about not just educating.  It's actually about integrating, and the collaboration, bringing people into the process so that they are participants and affecting the future because it's their future.

Ailyn from Cuba?

>> AILYN FEBLES:  Thank you, good morning.  Thank you to the organizers for having invited us to participate.  I come in representation of Cuba ‑‑ organized Cuban Civil Society.  Recently, information technologies, it is a young organization that is a group of young professionals of the Sector in order to potentialize their innovative capacities, capabilities and have an impact in our country, reinforcing values, going from a society that is centered on its people to become an innovative and integrating one.  It is impossible to reach our innovation and technological goals by being an isolated society.  We need to have Civil Society playing an important role in which all of our actors will discuss and interact more, and discuss on how to use Internet in order to transform political, social and economic life of developing countries, and not only talk about exploitation and domains.

It is for this reason that the different proposals that are being made need to take into account the different realities and capabilities of development of different sectors and regions in the world, taking into account each nation's priorities, as well as their independence and sovereignty.  In Cuba we have implemented several actions in order to contribute, as was said, to connect to knowledge and participate in a true globalization of information, that means to share and not to exclude.

End of quote.

This is difficult in the beginning.  The factors that can have an impact in the safe use of Internet have been developed in Cuba in the last 50 years.  We all know how to write and read.  We have a right to access:  Children, women, senior citizens, people with disabilities, we learn English from the beginning of public education.  The language of Internet in spate of it not being the native language that is most spoken.

The level of culture is very high as well as the guarantee in our different spaces in order to keep developing it and it has been the will of our Government to promote the use of Internet and technologies that haven't been able to be carried out due to the blockade that we're suffering right now.

On behalf of this Association of Programmers of Cuba, I would like to share our point of view for the meeting that we have tomorrow at 4:00 p.m.  We have developed a project for the creative use of ICT services in harmony with the environment.  We have developed a competition where the prize is for the best participation of women‑formed teams.  This ICT workshop, as well as all of the workshops that have been accompanying with the use of software in which we participate as Government, Civil Society, and the States, and general population versus having to do with technologies as a pretext.

We have launched different meetings and Working Groups at a National level where we integrate capabilities for the correct use of technologies and Internet.  All of this closes a cycle in which every two years, we will develop our cybersociety.  The first meeting will be held in October 2017, and this will set on the horizon the challenges that we must face in ICT matters in order to contribute to a prosperous and sustainable future.  The OIC proposes itself as a dynamic and productive space for dialogue and action in which different sectors of society will be able to be sensitive, educate, and move society for the promotion of the correct use of IT and communication technologies.

From this space we will promote concrete and coherent alternatives that will support in the process of achieving a prosperous development and a sustainable one as well and we will consolidate all of the achievements in the area of social justice, reached by our homeland since a few years ago.  We must move a bright future is possible.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  I apologize.  You got a little bit out of order but actually, Abeer has a different perspective from Egypt, broadening it to women, youth but also people with special needs to be included.  Abeer?

>> ABEER SHAKWEER:  Thank you, Peter, good morning, everyone.  I work as an Advisor to the Minister of Communications and Information Technology in Egypt and yes we all believe and agree on the importance of the inclusion of women and youth.  However, I believe that special attention should be paid to the inclusion of women, youth, and every person with disability who are subjected to double discrimination, as they are not given equal opportunities to earn income, and therefore have in most cases lower standards of living, adding gender discrimination, unfortunately women with disabilities suffer from multiple layers of discrimination.

Realizing that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in Egypt work to put the inclusion and empowerment of persons with disabilities on the top of its agenda, and within this context we launched many, many projects including the development of Egypt's ICT and Internet accessibility policy in cooperation with the ITU.  Developing assistive technologies which support languages, train and employ persons with disabilities at the ICT Sector, providing access to Internet assistive technologies to all special education schools and public universities.

Only two weeks ago, we launched the Arab Regional ICT center for persons with disabilities in cooperation with the ITU.  Actually I can go for hours but I would like to give you a feel of the real world through a short video that I think my colleagues here will run.  Thank you.

[ Video ]

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you very much.  That was actually great because it shows not just ‑‑ we were earlier discussing inclusion into the Internet, but this is using the Internet for inclusion, right?  And we need to look at both sides of that, and so that was ‑‑ it's really moving so really, thank you for presenting that.

We're going to come back one more time to Raul.  Last night, we were working on the schedule and Raul actually thought that he was addressing one of the later sessions on capacity building but Raul also wanted to address and contribute to the discussion on inclusion of women and youth.  So Raul, please go ahead.

>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  Thank you very much.  If we want to include women, more women on the Internet, the Internet should be relevant for women.  At this moment, the percentage of IT jobs that are held by women in the world is decreasing, and the contents are mainly available by men so it is clear that we need women to be technology developers and also content developers.

Every person in The Internet Society has a perspective and we have things addressing those needs like the ones we have in Africa.  We are training women to acquire the basic technology skills for getting jobs in the IT industry.  With regard to youth I think what is basic is connecting the children in the schools.  We always speak about connecting the schools but what is really important is connect all the children around the world.

One final comment on a very nice project that we run in partnership with CGI Brazil and this year also in partnership with the Government of Mexico and dot MX that is the youth Program that we run here in IGF, this year we brought together those three organizations with the Government of Mexico, more than 80 youth, that you will have the opportunity to see all of them in every session during the IGF.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you, Raul.  So we're going to open this up now for questions.  Dr. Youssef, and we have the microphones, so if you want to contribute, please just let us know.  We want to keep the contributions, the interventions, to about one minute because we want an opportunity for as many people as possible.

There's somebody over here.  One of the issues we heard a lot about the efforts to bring women into the tech industry.  The mother of the Internet in China, that was a wonderful story.  Coding, Gabriela, but there's some other issues maybe we also want to address, which is the earlier, Yolanda, you talked about it, which is disparity on using the Internet.  In many countries, the difference, the percentage of women and girls using the Internet versus men, or boys, males, is just very wide, right?

And so why is that?  And what can we do about closing that gap, in addition to closing the gap on the development side, the technology side, the coding side?  All right?

So we need to I think address both of those gaps when we're talking about the gender gap.  Over here?  Turn on Dr. Youssef's microphone, please.  I don't think the mic was working.

Hold on.

Could you ‑‑ yeah, repeat.

>> Hello.  My name is Jesus Gonzales.  Before anything else, I'd like to congratulate for the great work you're carrying out.  In 2000, I was beginning junior high, and it was very difficult to overcome that digital divide.  It was very difficult to have access to a computer and I remember with my first home works the Mexican Institute for youth brought to us closer to the Internet through cyber cafes and gave us the opportunity to learn.  We are success stories thanks to the policies that you represent.  Maybe sometimes we're nervous and it's difficult to overcome it but I would like to ask you not to lose faith and hope in our youths, even when our social networks and everybody is against our youths, we as youths still want to grow and want the world to evolve through ICTs.

[ Applause ]

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  That's great.

>> Hello, I am Abdel Bachar Bong from Chad.  This is a good panel because we're talking about Internet, integration and duration as well.  What could you tell us about the Internet?  I was talking about capacities.  Will we have a big program of reinforcement of inclusion of women and children?  I know ISOC, ICANN, they have a fellowship program, but how can we reinforce these programs?  So we need true, viable programs for inclusion.  You tell us, okay, in each country we're going to take youths to our panels.  This is what I'm seeing here.  There are no youths, there are no young people in your panel so maybe in each panel we should include young people to participate.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Why don't we do this.  I can probably ‑‑ 

We have a lot of requests for interpretation.  So here I have there, and then there's somebody, Dr. Youssef, in front of you to your other.  Then we'll move to the other side of the room.

>> Good morning.  I am Carlos Francisco Flores, I come from the University of Guadalajara.  I have a degree in international business, and I aspire to a Master's in IT.  With the relation between two, you have already spoken of, it is a great tool in order to make good business without much investments in some environments but my question focuses on the environment in Mexico.

How can one, as a potential entrepreneur in this area of ICTs, how can we ‑‑ how can we overcome all of the obstacles that we have in Mexico to do so?  And about startups that are going down due to matters of sustainability or economic problems, maybe due to taxes and all these types of details.  How is the structure made?

Because I understand that we need to educate population more in these areas, but what are you doing in order to develop the industry as such, and so that it won't be an industry owned by only a few actors or entrepreneurs here in Mexico?

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  We want to collect a number of these questions and then come back so that would be great.

We'll move to ‑‑ so why don't we pick up maybe two more comments, and then we'll come back up to the panel.  So somebody over here on this side?  Dr. Youssef ‑‑ we're going here first.  Okay, good.

>> Hello, my name is Patricia Contreras.  My question is for Gabriela Rocha.  Which are the challenges, obstacles to which Laboratoria has had to ‑‑ which Laboratoria has had to overcome to train women and to educate them in an environment that unfortunately for many is an environment or an area mainly male, that is mainly male?

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  But for the people asking questions, if you could also stand up so that the camera can see you, because we're doing this remote online, as well.  Actually, what we're going to do is there's some questions, if you'd like to answer them.  We'll then go to a remote question to see if there's any questions remotely and come back over here for the questions in the room.  So, please, if there's anybody that wants to respond to any of the questions so far.

>> GABRIELA ROCHA:  I would like to start.  What was your name?  Patty.

Obviously there are many challenges we're facing.  One of the things we have learned is it is what motivates us so much, it's the fact that there's a lot of potential.  There are brilliant women out there that just because of a lack of opportunities are outside of formal economy, don't have opportunity of social mobility, et cetera.  So in Laboratoria we have a process of selection through which we try to identify these women with a lot of potential, and it has been wonderful to teach them and have them be a part of our programs because they are very capable people and they are fast learners.  The challenges in many cases have to do on one hand with their social context, and on the other, and I'm talking about the second point that you mentioned, once they are already at work.

When it comes to the social context, we are still facing many challenges regarding discrimination that women face in Latin America.  Our students start to feel empowered because they're working in an environment that is only a woman environment, and they determine what they want in life, and their goals, et cetera, and sometimes their husbands feel threatened and don't let them have the freedom that they need to be successful in the program and later on at work.

Also, we still don't live in a society that facilitates the necessary conditions so that women can leave their home and work on their education and their jobs.  Many of them are single mothers, and do not live in the necessary conditions so that they can dedicate themselves 100% to this task.

These are some of the challenges that we face, and that in a way we try to improve with each of our students so that they can all have these opportunities.

And on the other hand, when it comes to their jobs, their work, there's so much demand in the digital Sector that companies are looking for talent, and when they see that there's a program for women that are very well prepared and ready to work, they are truly eager to open their doors for them.  And these companies start to talk about how it has been so much better for them to have women on their team because diversity brings about more creativity, innovation, and it's not the famous all‑men's club.

And I think the more we work on these areas, the more we can see the benefits for them, and I am glad to say that we have had very few problems with our students in this mainly male environment at work.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Do you want to just have a real quick intervention?

>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  Yes, first point is that I come from an organization that is led by a woman, and we have half of our executive team meeting are women, and half of our staff, more or less, are women, too.  So this is about leading by example.  And one silent work we do is that every, in many places around the world, we identify women partners.  We bring them together.  We help them to promote them in their communities, and we see now that many of the women that have participated in those meetings around the world are now in leadership positions, and some of them are here.

And the same with youth.  Many of the people that have participated, people between 18 and 25 years old that have participated in the last year in the youth program in IGF, now they are back here by their own because they are ‑‑ they have leadership positions in different organizations in this field so I think it's about work and leading by example.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  Do we have any questions for remote participation?  Nothing yet, okay.  If there is some, just wave at me.  Have the question sign.

Okay, yes, Yolanda, please.

>> YOLANDA MARTINEZ:  Just to answer the question from our colleague of the University of Guadalajara, I also studied at the University of Guadalajara proudly, and fortunately this year there was a very important reform in order to accelerate the process of company creation.  Fortunately this year in gob.MX the creation of a company can be done through the Internet 100%.  It is free and by law it needs to be carried out in less than 24 hours so I would be glad to talk to you after the panel, because it's one of our commitments to provide free access for the services that will promote entrepreneurship using the Internet.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Our host, Lenni Montiel, has to leave now, unfortunately but I want to just before you leave, just thank you very, very much.  I really appreciated all the work that you've done so that we're here, but also your comments, and I know how busy you are that you are actually able to stay with us for a full hour so thank you very, very much.  And I just wanted to thank you before you had to leave.  Thanks.

Back over here for a couple more questions.  So we'll go here, and then thank you for standing.  Is there another question down here, again, so we'll do here and then here.  Thank you.

And then ‑‑ and then all the way in the back, but, yeah.  Yes, we'll do here, here, and then there, good.  Thank you.

>> Good morning.  I am Ivan Baratta from the Association of Professors in Cuba.  Seneca would say there's no favorable wind for us not to know where we're going and in topics of the Internet also the 2030 SDGs have to lead the way for our ideas and the paths that we must follow, and I think that with the same objectives, even though we have certain doubts of our prior goals in which ‑‑ regarding which many countries haven't been able to overcome their obstacles regarding education, inclusion and everything that we have committed to, our 2030 objectives, or goals, there's something that coincides in all of these cases, the need to train teachers adequately so that knowledge can be given through the Internet, as well.

They're not calling to us to connect all around.  We need to include the participation of children, and therefore, this 2015 debt that we have when it comes to our goals that we're going to trail on until 2030 need to become much more important to be able to reach our end goal, which is the most ‑‑ the major human development, as much human development as possible.  All of this is part of these policies to achieve that the Internet will serve human development as much as possible.

The question is:  How do we ‑‑ how can we see these projects that have a local impact?  And how are we influencing Government policy so that they will truly acknowledge the fact that Internet needs to favor the process of comprehensive and inclusive preparation, and that it needs to be one more path to take in order to achieve full development for children and youths in education?

It's impossible to navigate through education if we don't know our basic ABCs, and we need to maintain basic levels of education.  We have a lot of exclusion of children that go to work at an early age, and in spite of everything, Internet needs to come to support these processes that are essential in order to achieve a complete inclusion in the Internet.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  ‑‑ of this session but I do want to take some of the questions that we've already said.  So we're going to do this next one will be right here.  We'll go to the back, and we'll do one more from over here and you had your hand raised from the very beginning so we'll do that.

So we have one, two, three, and I think ‑‑ we're pretty much out of time?  No, we have time?  We're okay?  Okay.

So, yeah, we'll do one, two, three, and then four will be over here, thank you.  Keep your intervention short so we can get as many in as possible.  Thank you.

>> My name is Zena from Lebanon.  SDG5 calls for empowering women and girls and to achieve gender equality.  In my country, Lebanon, we might not have a problem in building capacities, as well as offering equal access to study, especially ICT topics, but maybe what is needed everywhere, not only in Lebanon, is to have companies recruiting more women at all levels.  Is it possible to have ICT companies set a target, let's say of X percent female as a global work force?  I think this might be a good step towards achieving the inclusion of women in the society.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you very much.  In the back and then to this side.

>> Good morning, Mr. Fernández from the University of Mexico.  Everyone speaks of Internet for everyone but it's not just Internet for Internet, but we have to educate people, give them training, so that they are aware so that we provide health services, as well.  No one's speaking about this, about we see everyone bending over, hunching over.  We need to see development of more ergonomic, accessible tools that enable us to use the Internet while in a healthy position.  We need to educate people appropriately not just providing Internet itself.

So let's reinforce those points, as well.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  ‑‑ topic and then we'll move on to the next discussion topic so we have a little bit of time here.  You raised your hand from the very beginning, sorry, so please.

>> Excuse me, I'm afraid I've lost my voice.  But I think it's very important, there's very little time to say everything that we need to say in terms of Cuba's experience.  I am here as representing a Civil Society platform for the National Economic and Social Development plan to 2030, the vision of the nation, which is strategic, and that is the report that I bring here to you.  Everything that has been said here from the Sector also includes a project developed by Madeo which is for free of cost access in Cuba, two projects at the end of the day that have been worked on significantly, one of which an organic project that deals with culture, the organic museum that exhibits different ‑‑ that has different exhibits, and many of the exhibits and the pieces on exposition at the museum are there and have been provided through access to the Internet.  We also need to promote this through another important section of the country, the Province of Extenua.  There we have a project that is being undertaken by the communications school with local Governments, the central Havana Government, and we're working on that, as well.  I think that this is in synergy with the compulsory program in the country.

Now, I just have one question given an issue that we have solved, that is, that all women in Cuba earn the same amount as men.  So developers would have to receive the same financial compensation as male developers.  So my question is, if we're developing so many women developers, why are they not in the whole world earning as much as male developers?

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  I'll see if there are any answers.  So, please.

>> Thank you.  I'm Davey Sun from Beijing Technical Institute.  I'm a technical guy, and it's the first time to participate in IGF here.  I don't have questions, but I would like to offer a phenomenon I observed during when I heard some news.

Many people would know that people use mobile app to do a lot of things.  One news I heard make me some thinking that some old people that cannot use the mobile phone, a computer that cannot access to some services, that most some traditional services are moving to the Internet.  The news I heard about an old lady that in the street cannot find a taxi so because like Uber and Didi in China now are very popular, and especially young guys, and some people very fond of using it.  So even the traditional taxi use this app to run their business.

Some older people cannot even compete with the young guys.  So I have ‑‑ I just propose this topic as ‑‑ to ask if there's any discussion here related to this.  Because today's topic is about inclusive development, inclusive groups of the Internet, so I would like to ask people, to challenge people here, to think of a way to help more people to better access the services in the Internet.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  So, yeah, so inclusion is actually all people.  And using the Internet to solve real‑world problems exactly like you said.

So there may be some responses to some of the questions.  Everybody doesn't have to ‑‑ does not have to respond and then beer going to come to Alejandro who is our Rapporteur who is going to try to just quickly pull together some of the little nuggets of things, insights from this part of the discussion, which has really been good.  It's been great.  So does anybody want to ‑‑ yes?  Edmon, please.

>> EDMON CHUNG:  In response to the gentleman just mentioned but I wanted to respond to the gentleman earlier, in terms of youth participation in this particular panel, I agree very much that that is very important, and I wanted to bring attention to one of the workshops that is a feeder into this session, which is the workshop, which will happen in workshop room 4 at noon, which talks about youth participation both on capacity‑building and policy participation, and on these panels, right?

So we can't just bring them in and let them sit around.  We need to get them to actually actively speak at panels, as well.  So I agree very much.

And in response to the gentleman here, I think that's a great topic.  I mean, I've been trying to advocate that concept.  We talk about the digital divide, and the wide digital divide and narrowing it a lot.  You know, people that cannot access the Internet, the rural places, but we forget about the deepening digital divide in urban areas.  Even though 90% of people probably in Beijing is connected to the Internet, that 10% is left behind so far.  So even though it's a narrow digital divide, it's deepening and that is what causes market failure and I think what the gentleman just mentioned is market failure.  The market has failed because it doesn't allow the elderly, those who are not online now are missing out on services.

And that's one ‑‑ when markets fail, that requires intervention, and that's where Internet Governance and policy comes into play.  So we can't just look at how wide or narrow the digital divide is, but also how deep the digital divide is even though when it's narrow.  So I think that's a very good point.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  I think it's a great point, as well.  Because one of the things that we know from some of the research is that as more people in a country connect to the Internet, it closes the income inequality gap between countries, but the paradox is that as more people in a country connect, it widens the income inequality in that country, because the people who are connected improve so much faster than the people not connected.  So in the name of equality, we're not going to tell people to disconnect, so there's only one answer:  Everybody has to be connected.  Right?  So it's a great point, Edmon, a really great point that you made.

Any other final comments?  Yolanda and then Daniel.

>> YOLANDA MARTINEZ:  Very quickly for our colleagues in the education Sector, I'm very pleased to have heard the words from the Cuban Professor and the Professor from the University in Mexico.  I think we all share the importance of an inclusive process, and the idea that it has to included cation.  We need to generate comprehensive programs where teachers are empowered to be able to use digital programs where they're able to make the most of the Internet, computer tools, applications, so that they can generate more inclusive education through more responsible education.

The Internet is a great enabler, but like everything in the world, if we learn to cross the road and we look right to make sure that there are no cars coming, we also have to teach society, all actors in society, especially our youth, what it means to use the Internet but to use it responsibly under conditions of productivity.

>> DANIEL ABADIE:  The Internet is not the end but the means to the end where we need to build one great focus that we need to see in Governments, in generating the same ability amongst students, where teachers are running behind the students because the students are much further ahead on that learning curve.

In elementary and secondary schools, in Argentina, we have the same inequalities.  At the end of the day, it's not a physical thing that's generating, but rather it's a platform of knowledge, and we need to integrate teachers and students so that we have a responsible Internet, as Yolanda was saying.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Now, we have two phenomenal Rapporteurs.  They have the hardest job here, which is to try to just distill things.  So the Rapporteur for this first part of the discussion, Alejandro, and ‑‑ please.

>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY:  Thank you, Pepper.  My name is Alejandro Pisanty.  Thank you for the invitation.  I thank the organizers for thinking I could do this job.  It was made easier by your call Pepper on distilling the most concrete examples.

So ‑‑ because we have a transcript, so I would mention maybe the salient points of things that people can actually take for further work.  One of them is the emphasis on Government services, including changing them, not only automating them, so that, for example, they make people's lives easier, like for creating companies, starting them up, getting them registered.

Second, it's an important message I distilled from the session is empowering the communities, not only bringing in the capacity‑building, but actually doing it in such a way that the community becomes more empowered, and it's a focus on the community as well as on the individual, if I read or understood well.

The example from Laboratoria, they're working closely with young women who have a particular combination of skills and opportunity, and are denied access paths, so you're breaking the barrier with their strengths.  I bow to my colleague Chuang Liu through her to Madam Hu, our Professor.  I refuse to only call her Madam Hu, because she's a very high ranking academic.  It's hard to distill from that a way to empower what will China will have.  Half of the population are women, so from her example to scale it to 600 million women in China will be hard, but it's really a shining example to be taken into account.

I would also say that the actual empowerment, bringing the young people and I will say the young, the old, the people with disabilities, all the communities that are not part of the mainstream into the decision‑making processes is important.  I do have a personal editorial note there about the scaling of that kind of effort so that maybe you're not going to create an Assembly in a stadium but create some webs of trust or other mechanisms so that people's voices are not lost in the process.

And the Government action for inclusion is extremely important, and I would say for all the projects that we saw even when they are undertaken by all stakeholders, shaped by stakeholders, the Government's responsibility is very high because very few things scale the way Governments scale, and I say this as an editorial extraction from the example given by Egypt, the kind of effort that was shown there and we know in other places that can be made by Governments can only have that size and that scale when it includes public moneys and public efforts.

But the multistakeholder process within it or around it has to be preserved, as well.  It is very easy to extract a biased conclusion from a project like that, since only the Government has the scale to do it, the moneys and the equipment, the structures.  Doesn't mean that it has to be governed by the Government alone.  Listening to the community to building together with the communities, especially with the marginalized communities, is equally important.

And the final point I extract is the emphasis on when going back to education, on the digital skills for teachers, and I made an editorial note of myself, which is don't buy the digital natives' rhetoric at face value.  Digital natives are in all generations, and you may have very limited skills within digital native populations that have to be fostered, things as basic as search capacity, the use of bullion logic within search strings, very elementary stuff, escapes both aged researchers in universities and the very young assumed digital natives, so use cases, going back to the community, I will take that from Raul, is very important so that you know what you actually have to fix before bringing in a program.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you very, very much.  That was a great way to bring closure to this part of the discussion.  What we're going to do now is move into the second discussion topic, which is capacity building, and that naturally is going to lead into the third discussion topic after that, which is about local relevant content, local language, and what makes content relevant, and that's linked very closely to capacity building.

So some of the people up here are going to stay up here and some are going to move and other people are going to be coming up.  So why don't we do that and I'm going to hand off the moderating for the next session to Dr. Youssef.

So we're just going to keep going.  And we hope more people will come in, and given the different topics, as well.  So I just want to thank the panelists and the audience.  You are panelists as well, because you know as much about these things as we do.  And we just are trying to get the discussion going.

So, yeah, just come on up, and I'm going to hand the microphone to Dr. Youssef.  Thank you.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Merci.  Thank you very much.

I think that we can get started.  It's already 11:22, so I believe it might be time we find ourselves in an international Forum, and given my good University, I'm going to speak French.  It's a divided cause, because I'm much more comfortable in French than in English.

Now, the succession that's just been set has shown whether, if we take into account the reaction of the room and the questions that were posed yesterday, when we were in our preparatory meetings, Mr. Pepper, Madam Elizabeth and all of the participants were bearing in mind or questioning whether the session was going to be as interactive, whether the audience was going to be as interactive and interested, whether there were questions concerning the issues posed, and indeed, the reaction of the audience showed that the first succession was indeed right.

So if we ask the question whether the Internet is a vector of inclusive growth, I would say that the answer was given by the reaction of the room, and that is "yes," so the next is, if that is so, then we have to bear in mind that that inclusive growth, in order for it to work well in countries when there is a true numerical deficit, then we have to discuss the challenges facing us in terms of inclusion of vulnerable people, precarious people, women, young people, people unemployed or people with not as much educational background.

What type ‑‑ what categories of obstacles are of a technical nature?  Is it infrastructure, access, access to access?  And reinforcing capacities for using that infrastructure?  That is the topic of our second session.  If our Chairperson would like to give us a small introduction that would be find or should I give the floor directly to Mr. Rajan Mathews? Right then.  We'll begin with a remote participant, Mr. Antonio Garcia Zaballos.

Mr. Antonio Garcia, it seems we have a minor technical issue, Internet‑related.  It's natural.

Right, then, I would propose that insofar as we solve the technical problem, we go to our first speaker, Mr. Rajan ‑‑ oh, no, it seems that we've solved the problem.

>> RAJAN MATHEWS:  I'd like to first of all acknowledge the very great contribution the Government of India has done to ICT by laying out a very aggressive vision of making sure all 1.3 billion people and if you take the addressable market at least 1.1 billion of the citizens of this great country are connected to broadband.

That vision now rolled out for Government and private initiatives so that means we're talking about the private sector involving almost $10 billion U.S. every year for the next three to five years to ensure that capacity building vis‑a‑vis coverage is provided in just about every part of the country so that is the first main issue in capacity building is the massive investments required by private operators because the whole Telecom industry has been privatized in India and that will be a major challenge in terms of capacity building.  The second major issue we face in India is of course citizens education.

We have 26 at last count official languages and because the Internet is primarily English‑based we have a big problem in terms of educating the consumers so that they can access the content on the Internet once they have connectivity to use that effectively and efficiently.

The third area is of course partnerships, and the one thing that we're discovering in India in terms of being able to utilize the Internet is ensuring that this is a conjoined effort.  The most recent example of that was the demonization of currency in India where rupees 500 and 1,000 was not legal tender anymore and we saw a great fracture in the population of the haves and the have nots because the only people who could continue to get currency were those people who had access to a digital medium, a payments medium or an Internet medium so that they can access the money in the bank.  So again this issue of partnerships both with the Government, the private society in general is very, very critical for ongoing success.

The fourth area that we'd like to talk about is enlightened policy, and regulation.  And I think these are absolutely critical in terms of policy far reaching because the Internet is fast developing and we need to keep up in regulation which is lighter so we don't have problems trying to second guess.  So the four areas we're talking about the massive investments that are required, citizen education, partnerships and of course an enlightened regulatory and policy environment.  Thank you.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you very much, Mr. Mathews, very interesting.  Apparently we are now able to give the floor to Mr. Garcia Zaballos.  We're going to have a 30 second delay.  You have the floor, Sir.

>> ANTONIO GARCIA ZABALLOS:  Hello, everyone.  I hope you can hear me now.  Thank you very much for the opportunity.  I just wanted to think briefly on a few points that have not been mentioned throughout this session, and I think they might be particularly important.  On the one hand, we are talking about an intensive Sector, a capital intensive Sector, with a very important need to involve different actors at the Government level.

So far, we have been speaking a great deal about implications from Academia, the Government related to telecommunications or regulatory authorities.  However, I think one aspect that needs to be considered is introduction of the Ministries of Finance and the tax authorities, so as to be able to achieve financial inclusion, and with this topic, one essential subtopic are the conditions of investment and financing, and in this sense, the role of the multilaterals is going to be essential.

We're talking about training, education‑related topics, health care, public services, and digitalization of society as a whole.  At the end of the day, the role of multinationals will also be very important, and it's important to put that on the table as part of the discussion.  That is, how are we going to finance all of this?  What are going to be the implications for different actors at the Government level so as to distinguish that coordination between the different key players:  Government itself, private sector of course, and Academia?  Thank you ever so much.  And of course, the banks.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you very much, Mr. Zaballos, for your comments that clarified certain issues.  I think that when we give the floor to the audience, we'll be able to enter that discussion a little bit more.

And now I would give the floor to Mr. Edmon Chung.

>> EDMON CHUNG:  Edmon Chung here from dotAsia.  In terms of capacity building and building on my earlier intervention on youth inclusion I think really empowerment is the critical element leading to capacity building, as well.  At dotAsia, in fact, we've been involved from the very beginning in bringing youth to like anything, to IGF, ICANN and IETF and other forums.  Raul, my colleague, mentioned earlier the Youth IGF program.  I'm proud to say that dotAsia has been part of that since the inception of being ‑‑ coming from one of the programs started back in 2008, NetMission.Asia program, which led into the IGF program at the Asia Pacific version of the IGF, the Asia Pacific Regional IGF, and many others, other initiatives, and the whole ecosystem of youth empowerment work in Internet Governance, which has now led to other areas in Europe and Latin America and Africa and here, of course, at the global IGF.

But what I wanted to talk about is really what we learned in terms of capacity building, really two things that we've learned is important and I think it applies to youth and women and elderly as well and that's, one, is that really, when we think about it, instead of walk before you run, you need to let them to run before they walk.  That's the new sense of the Internet.  And the other thing, the second thing that we learned, is peer based learning.

Role of the teachers, I think others have mentioned, the role of the teachers have changed with the Internet, because the students can access the information easily.  What the role of the Internet ‑‑ what the role of the teachers are then important is to facilitate the peer‑based learning.  And these are elements I think are important in terms of capacity‑building, making it relevant, making it interesting and that applies to elderly situation, as well.  Some of the programs we've participated in is having the elderly teach the elderly how to use the Internet, which is much more effective than having kids teach the elderly, which seems like a good idea, but you try to teach your grandmother how to use the Internet, and you know how frustrating that is.  So what is important is really the two aspect again, getting them to walk before they run ‑‑ not to walk before they run, but to run before they walk.  Get them on the panels.  Let them participate, let them feel participation and empowered and inclusive, and then provide the information.  Then they're more interested to learn.  Because I think at the end of the day capacity‑building is as much about building hope as it is building skills.  And building hope really means making it fun and relevant for those we are looking to build capacity for.  Thank you.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you, Mr. Chung.  Thank you for your intervention.  I think that you have in mind also that the population sensitive of numeric elements and capabilities aren't only on the students of schools, but these are populations of youths that maybe haven't gone to school, or are on strike.  But you need to consider the reinforcement of these capabilities of these abilities in countries in which there is true poverty, and countries that haven't had adequate ‑‑ appropriate development regarding the Internet and haven't had true access to it.

So I think we need to clarify which are the programs, methods, and means that are possible to train and create the numeric abilities of that population.

I now pass the floor to Berger, UNESCO.

>> GUY BERGER:  In Sustainable Development you have a certain goal which reads as follows:  Peace, justice and strong tins institution.  Who can tell me what goal that is?  What number?  Peace, justice, strong institutions.

>> 16!

>> GUY BERGER:  16, thank you very much.  Many people think it should be number one because without that, what else can you do?  If you look at 16.10, the target and the goal 16, 16.10, it is public access to information and fundamental freedoms.  Well, if there was ever a case for why 16 should be number one, it's this point, public access to information and fundamental freedoms.  Because without that you won't have peace, justice, strong institutions, in fact you won't have much else.  Public access to information is something that the Internet is about and something that the IGF is about.

Just as we do not take or should not take the Internet for granted, we should not take public access to information and fundamental freedoms for granted.

So what capacity needs to be built to actually get public access to information and fundamental freedoms online?  What skills do we need to navigate this ocean of the Internet?  What skills do we need to fish in this ocean and to build the boats to float on this ocean?

One answer that UNESCO has come up with is media and information literacy.  This is a large concept.  It covers a lot of skills which relate to online and offline but what's important about this is that it includes digital literacies which themselves need some unpacking as to what we mean by that and I'll touch on that in half a second but I want to tell you, there's a wonderful, large movement called the Global Alliance for partnerships in media and information literacy, a global movement that is trying to define, what are these competencies that are needed, and how to actually get them developed.

From the UNESCO point of view, we would identify three bundles.  These are bundles of competencies that are relevant to children in schools, but also to adults, and also to elderly people, as we've said.  So the three bundles of skills:  First, you need to understand the Internet.  You need to understand the affordances of the Internet.  You need to understand the actors on the Internet, what their interests are, what the agendas and hidden agendas are, what the offerings are.  We need to understand what it means to get a so‑called free service.

You need to understand the problems on the Internet, and you need to understand the opportunities on the Internet.  That's bundle one, you need to understand the Internet.  Bundle 2, you need to know your rights and you need to know how to advocate for your rights on the Internet.  You need to know your rights to seek and receive and impart information.  That is the essence of the right to freedom of expression.

Number 3 ‑‑ and by the way, you need the right to privacy also, you need to assert that as well and you need to understand.

Package number 3 of competencies.  You need to know how to find information, how to sift information, how to assess it, evaluate it, how to distinguish truth from lies.  You need to understand also how to convert information into knowledge.  In other words, you need to learn how to learn when you're online.  This is a key competence that we haven't really interrogated.  We MOOCs.  We need a lot more information to understand how MOOCs are working.  I can mention later some MOOCs we're doing in Latin America on freedom of expression.  That's on input side how to learn.  How to learn on the output side.  How to learn how to create content.  How to learn how to do business on the Internet.  How to learn on the Internet how information businesses can help realize SDG 8, which is decent work and economic growth.

It's important to understand also when you're creating on the Internet, SDG 9C about innovation which is also about Internet connectivity.  So to summarize we need capacities for three things:  To understand the Internet, because that tells us where we are.  We need to know our rights on the Internet.  That tells us who we are:  We are global citizens.  Number three, we need to know how to use the Internet.  That tells us what we can do with the Internet.

So to conclude, Sustainable Development has to include the development of people's ability to use the internet, especially for 16.10, public access to information, fundamental freedoms.  And if we can capacitate each user to use the Internet for public information and fundamental freedom, then in turn the net will build our capacity to achieve the diverse dimensions of development indicated by the SDGs ‑‑ poverty, gender, sustainable cities.  Know them all.  The proposition I'm putting to you is this:  It is logical.  Start with media and information literacy competencies if you want to make mileage in achieving the SDGs.  Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you, Mr. Berger.  Thank you for this intervention, which was excellent and very pertinent.  Indeed you have clarified on the large Specter of reinforcement abilities.  It's not about technical abilities but regulatory and legal abilities, as well.

Now I believe that we are about to have an interesting experience with the intervention of Dr. Wael Abdel Aal, who will take the floor.

>> WAEL ABDEL AAL:  It's my first attendance to this type of Conference.  I am a physician, practicing physician, and Chairman and Medical Director of a Charity Hospital back in Egypt, and at the same time, I am the Chairman of the telehealth Foundation.  Thank you all for inviting me, and I'd just like to say a few points that:  Don't be late to the future, because the future has already left.  And it's a very alarming note, because the speed, not only the experiences of the future, but the changes, the speed of the changes, as you have said, running before you walk, is extremely important.

Lots of work force, communities, and even Governments will become obsolete if we're not careful and we're not in control anymore.  Things are moving around us, and we have to be very intelligent.  We know that industries of the future, in health care and others, particularly after looking at parallel computing, algorithms and meta information, the abundance of communication devices and the cloud facilitated the innovations of artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology and cybersecurity.

We understand in health care that this will probably be one of the strongest devices in health care, and we are utilizing this now in our work in Egypt, and our programs that are happening there.

Our main primarily goal in capacity‑building is that things that used to work no more work.  And we need to fast adapt and adopt the new changes, and this is what we need to build in the capacity‑building, the capacity of the minds of our youth.  And those who don't shift and adapt quickly will probably become obsolete if they resist this change.

We have to have an open mind, flexible approach, adapt, and adopt quickly.  We need to look at the selective skills of each of our individuals.  We don't have to be one thing goes through all.  We need to be very selective and build to empower these youth in using their skills and improve it using the ICT as a power for that.

I'll be speaking about more details of our programs maybe in the next session and tomorrow we have a morning session at 10:45 about telehealth and telemedicine and the programs we have already on the ground.  I don't want to take more than my time but we have a very nice example from the morning from Gabriela Rocha about how the Darwinian natural selection with Web developers, they don't have to go to college and school, but they succeeded by natural selection being intelligent about their choice of route.

And at the end, we need to start by so many pilots, and build on the successes.  We will have failures, edit them, build on successes and make these successes affect other programs, keep an open mind, we will always be changing and be wary of that.  Thank you very much.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you, doctor.  Now, I would like to pass the microphone to Mr. Raul Echeberria from ISOC.

>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  I already spoke a little about capacity‑building in the previous slot, but the international society strategy on development is basically four pillars:  Building infrastructure, building capacities, bringing our expertise from the work on the ground to feed the policy debate and international fora at the local and Regional level and the fourth pillar is capacity‑building.

So what is capacity‑building for deploying infrastructure, for maintaining infrastructure, for using infrastructure, capacity‑building for building communities, for empowering communities, for working with the communities in different aspects, and capacity‑building for bringing this experience from all stakeholders and expertise that we have distributed among all stakeholders to the policy debate.  And this is exactly what we are talking about, building capacities across all the needs, and without those capacities we cannot deploy the ICTs, and without ICTs, we cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.  Thank you.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you, Mr. Echeberria.  I now pass the floor to our last speaker, Mr. Eric Loeb, from AT&T.

>> ERIC LOEB:  As I was preparing at first I was thinking to talk a bit about some of the demand side capacity‑building examples but then as I've listened to many of the other interventions, I'm thinking that there are a few very fundamental supply‑side issues that are worth mentioning, and it's at the risk of either stating the overly obvious or making sure we reinforce some things that aren't always shot of as the bright, shiny objects of something new but I think they're worth mentioning because they are of a very macro effect and in my experience working in countries all over the world, the extent to which these very fundamental issues are being addressed on encouraging the supply side, some of the things to which Rajan had mentioned, bear mentioning.

So first, Universal Service Fund reform.  Just a very fundamental point to take a look at what Universal Service Fund is in place.  To the extent the funds are being used at all, which is a problem in some instances, are they being used to promote the supply side capacity for the services of the future:  Mobile, broadband, et cetera?  Not another fixed‑line PSTN phone.  It's a very fundamental issue but one that can have a magnifying impact.

Second, tax policy.  To the extent that the services that we're talking about for developing inclusion and human capacity are considered a luxury, and taxed at a high level, and taxed because it's a very large, easy source to identify, you are missing out on the multiplier effect of digital inclusion, societal inclusion, economic inclusion and this is an area where I think Government policy is ripe for innovation of thinking about ways rather than going for that early big hit, you think about an aggregation of marginal gains as you've encouraged much more inclusive society and economy.

And third, policy, also fundamental, National broadband plans.  They've been shown to be incredibly effective at addressing supply and demand‑side issues.  If it hasn't been done, do it.  If it has been done and it was done five years ago, it's probably out of date, because the technology is so far evolved in that period of time, that whatever the conclusions were then, may not be in keeping with what is appropriate or possible now.

So again, very macro points on the supply side.  There are other examples we can come back to on the demand side but I thought those are important to mention.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you, Mr. Loeb.  Indeed, you have clarified in turn a few new aspects of this inclusive growth and those problems of the Internet on different transactions.

Now we're coming to the end of this panel.  In the name of our attendees, I thank our speakers:  Mr. Mathews, Mr. Garcia Zaballos, Mr. Chung, Mr. Berger, Mr. Abdel Aal, Mr. Echeberria and Mr. Loeb.  I think all of the interventions have brought up certain questions from our audience.  My colleague is also here and we're going to round up those questions and...  Go ahead.

>> The remote participation from the remote hub in Havana, Cuba.  They would like to engage on this topic with all of you.  Thank you.

>> Hello from Havana, Cuba.  We would like to share with you the experience of a social institution that has been effective for 29 years in giving access to technologies and the inclusion of sectors, mainly in regarding the use of Information Technology use and communications.  We are an institution that has 600 technological hubs, and we use technologies.  We give our main services and courses in different modalities, from basic information at a distance, remote courses.  We include youths, children, adults, senior citizens, as well as people with disabilities.

For example, this year, we have had over 72,000 women graduate from our courses, and 138,000 people with disabilities.  These are people that have access to our hubs, and access to some of the centers that give access to other content, such as, for example, the collaborative encyclopedia, which is one of the most visited sites in our country which today has 160,000 published articles and over 158,000 visits.  We have a platform available to everybody in which we can all share experiences ‑‑ the experiences of those who post their comments and own experiences.

We also are talking about the social network that we want to include with other networks in the country and through which we would like all people to have access, indiscriminately of today.  This is the experience of our club.  We would like to thank you for the opportunity to have contact with you from Cuba.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you to our friends from Cuba ‑‑

[ Applause ]

‑‑ for their will to participate in this Forum but also for this sharing of experience that represents the success story of capacity‑building.

Now we're open for Q & A session, if you want.  My colleague, Mr. Pepper, is also here to facilitate these questions.

>> Hello, everybody, I'm from Lebanon.  First let me thank you for sharing inspiring and bright ideas and experiences with us but since Day Zero of this Forum, everybody's talking about connecting the next billion.  In order to bring opportunities to ICTs.  My question is have anyone developed a measurement scale with respect to sustainability and inclusiveness that gives us figures about how much is achieved in order to know how much work still has to be done?  Because Mr. Rajan Mathews from India has told us massive figures about how much money they have to spend to bring coverage to people and how much empowerment skills has to be done and has to be achieved in order to upscale the skills of the people.  Thank you.

[ Captioner does not have English translation ]

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you. 

>> RAJAN MATHEWS:  I think very briefly, there are metrics that we track, for example, right now, every month, we see how many new people are coming on from 2G to 3G to 4G, how many new cell towers are being built, how many of these are 2G, 3G, 4G, what areas we coordinate with the Government to see areas and pockets where there is no coverage and so we're working with the Government to roll out in those areas, coverage.  We're also rolling out along with the regulator and the policy maker educational forums that are conducted once every so often.  We track the number of people that are receiving connectivity every month.  For example, now we know that we have 250 million people who are connected to the Internet, who have connectivity.  We have to reach 650 million.  That's the target by 2020.

There will metrics in place in the government and private industry that track the progress.

>> >>ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Okay go ahead.

>> My name is Mariana Rubio.  I study at the University of Guadalajara.  I study Foreign Affairs.  And my question for you is following:  Have you faced ‑‑ have you had the case of a community not allowing access or not wanting to be connected?  And what is the solution you have found for that type of community or that type of people that is not open for change.

>> RAJAN MATHEWS:  We have had problems with electromagnetic field exposure.  We have had area when we say we want to put up connectivity, people say we do not want connectivity, because we're concerned with the health impacts of the emissions from mobile towers.  We have had to conduct a massive educational program.  The Government has had to come in.  We've had to include doctors and health professionals.  But this is an example when people have said, no, we don't want connectivity because of health hazards.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  I think that Edmon has something to say, as well.

>> EDMON CHUNG:  I think that's a great question, and part of the work I mentioned a little bit the elderly, they are a group that is sometimes says:  I don't want to touch this technology.  Just go away.

And the way we approach it is, first of all, it's a matter not of ‑‑ usually the push‑back is about they worry about the dependency then upon the technology.  They've heard a lot of bad things about it.  So two things we usually bring along, one is why they want to use it.

And the first thing that's important is to make it useful for their daily lives.  They are becoming more distant with their grandchildren, and if they want to connect with their grandchildren, which every one of them wants to, they need to use the technology.  Once they use it the first time, they're hooked, and that's very important, to create an environment that they ‑‑ it solves some of the problems immediately, and that's part of what I mean by run before they walk.  Get them to actually use the technology first.

And also to explain thereupon to improve the skills, but I think the main aspect is really to expose them, but not make them feel that they need to be then dependent on it.  Make sure that they can actually Master the technology and they can always put down the phone.  That's an important aspect I think in terms of pushing back on the ones who push back on capacity‑building.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Agreed.  I see that we have two questions, and a colleague has something to add, as well.

>> WAEL ABDEL AAL:  In our experience with telemedicine in Egypt which is supported by the Government of health and communication we found to the opposite, in areas where there was no Internet connectivity, when they heard about the merits of telemedicine in nearby villages it actually enticed people to work to develop and put Internet connectivity or even improve the bandwidth in that region so if you prove success I think people ‑‑ it's not easy, it's difficult but it can work the other way around, as well.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you, Dr. Abdel Aal.  We have two questions, one question here.  Please present yourself.

>> My name is Wisdom Donkar from Ghana.  I have a small contribution here.  Thousands of specialized collaborations between public actors and Government, businesses will be required in order to fully implement the SDGs by 2030.  Although infrastructure projects of engineering the greatest attention in this regard, they represent only one of many essential forms of public‑private cooperation across the SDGs landscape.

Now, different sectors are providing many pilots and experiments from which crucial lessons can be drawn.  Some are good, some are bad.  So for this reason and in my thinking for us to fully reach the SDGs, we need to create that enabling environment, and when I see the following as the environment that we need to create for us to fully reach the SDGs, one is the infrastructure.  Without infrastructure, I don't think reaching the SDGs would be possible.  We need the infrastructure to be able to create the enabling environment.

Should be shared infrastructure.  And we also have to think about content.  Content is very important.  And then we have to start actually talking to our Government to start opening up data, so we need data to actually inform what is going on, and this will bring about transparency, and if there is transparency, there will be trust between the citizens and Government and will also bring about accountability and then it will bring about innovation and then jobs.

With data, our students can actually use it to kind of create their own jobs, entrepreneurs.  That in itself will actually create employment for the masses and all that.

And then we also have to consider the judiciary and the law enforcement.  We need to bring them to speed, because most of the issues that is going on within our countries, I mean, concerns the judicial and law enforcement.  If they don't know about Internet Governance, the business that is going on, it will not help.

And then we also have to start showing impact, and if possible, we have to start bringing our grandmothers from the rural areas to come to IGF, to have them come and share some of their experiences, what they are going through and all that, and I believe this in itself will help us reach the SDGs.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you very much.  I think we have three parties to the answer.  Mr. Berger and Mr. Echeberria.  Have you some element of comments or answer?

>> RAJAN MATHEWS:  Again to reiterate the point we made was the massive amounts of infrastructure.  Let me give you parameters, today in India we have 500 million cell towers, 50 embassies switching centers each of which are several million dollars so as I said the magnitude of the investment is about 10 billion U.S. every year the next several years.  We've just begun to roll out 3G and 4G and we have to cover the whole country in order to be able to afford the interconnectivity so the massive amounts of investment.  That can only be done in partnership with the Government.  If the Government does not provide the enabling policies and the regulatory ‑‑ just recently we just talked about right of way.  It is extremely difficult to acquire land or sites for putting up cell towers of health and other, so support of the Government is absolutely essential.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Allow me to give the floor to Mr. Berger.  So, Mr. Berger, go ahead.

>> GUY BERGER:  Thank you for that point from Ghana.  Certainly the environment does require those points of infrastructure, content, transparency, as you said.  I think what's relevant to this panel is it needs capacity, also.  It needs the competence of the grandmothers.  They should know what are the opportunities to use the Internet.  What are the problems?  They should know how to use it for personal work, personal relations, family relations, grandchildren, but also how they can use the Internet for Sustainable Development more broadly.  So that means using it not just for personal reasons but also for societal reasons.

And this doesn't come naturally.  People have to experience some empowerment.  Self‑learning, participation in online learning, participation in offline learning, to realize this is the most incredibly powerful technology but you can have the technology, if you don't have the competence to use it, you will use, what, 5% of its potential.  Thank you.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you.  Raul, please?

>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  Thank you very much.  That was a great speech.  In fact, you should have been here on the stage.  Thank you very much for that.

And I will just mention a couple of things you say.  Of course, I agree 100% with the enabling environment.  We have to promote the enabling environment, therefore promote investment, for promoting innovation.  I think consolidating and innovation in the ecosystem is crucial.  That's very important.  And also for promoting entrepreneurship.

And ‑‑ but the other point you mentioned about private‑public partnerships and Sustainable Development Goals, that's very important.  And I think that while for many of us the Internet has been as in the previous slot was said, it has never been the ultimate objective of most of us.  Internet has been always very good for achieving other things, so the Sustainable Development Goals didn't change anything in that sense but they offer a platform for a common understanding, because now it is very clear we have to work together not for only for Internet connectivity, for increasing connectivity, but for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals on education, health care, on jobs and et cetera.  It's also a platform that all stakeholders can talk to each other much more clearly now, thanks to the Sustainable Development Goals, and I think that it provides opportunity for much more private‑public partnership and I hope that it happens.

And thank you very much again.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you, thank you, Mr. Raul.  The floor, Madam Martinez?

>> YOLANDA MARTINEZ:  Madam Chair, retaking the topic of how to improve and to promote appropriation, I think it's the communities that have to be the owners of the process.  In Mexico, we've learned this.  We've got excellent examples.  The Government has just headed a very large tender process because we want to ensure that all of the infrastructure is available to all wholesalers, and then we want to have local processes that are owned by the community.  They need to administer the network, and the service, and alliances with Civil Society is also very important that enables us to have processes for appropriation and development of capacities as our friend from UNESCO talked about.

Understanding the Internet, how a network works, at the community level, is very important, to learn how to manage one's rights.  It has to be done at the community level, as well.  To learn how to use and to give meaning to that usage will vary from community to community, so that example of multistakeholders and community‑based level will enable the Internet to have an impact in each community that's managing and responsible for their network, within the telecommunications system.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  ‑‑ two other questions in the room.  One there, please.

>> Good afternoon.  My name is Mauricio Kiros and I study at the University.  I agree completely with what was said.  It's very important to provide training to people in order for them to make good use of the Internet, to see how the Internet is going to be used for education, work, Government, et cetera but my question is:  What are the programs that are being implemented or developing or going to be undertaken to be able to provide that type of education?  Another question is, if the scope is the same as the supply that we're seeing.  Can we have on an equal footing the demand that we have and the scope and reach we have or is it always going go unequal or uneven playing field?

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  ‑‑ can reply, can answer this question.

>> YOLANDA MARTINEZ:  There are many programs and fora such as this are great spaces.  Today as of 5:00 p.m. there's a Forum on best practices within the within WSIS, and Raul shared the youth program and I think that's one of the most important initiatives for generating awareness and interest on the processes that exist in Internet Governance.  And the most important is that we all take part.  Make the most of these spaces so as to get to know the actors, see who is who, what innovative practices are being undertaken in other countries such as the case of Cuba we just saw, the example of our colleagues from Egypt when we're sharing also experiences, from Mexico.  These are spaces where we learn, where we generate networks, where we understand that any idea is valid.

This is a space in which we can generate the best ideas for exponential projects so I would invite you to the Forum at 5:00 p.m. where we'll have innovative practices, put on the table.  At 5:00 p.m., room 4.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  I think Mr. Loeb from AT&T has something to add to the answer.

>> ERIC LOEB:  I think the question about digital literacy is so interesting and sometimes I think Rajan, even in the Indian context when you have 22 official languages ‑‑ 

>> RAJAN MATHEWS:  26.

>> ERIC LOEB:  ‑‑ 26 official languages for the country, the challenge is there even of trying to find a platform for inclusion.

So the challenges in different places are significant.  One thing from a private sector perspective is how strong the incentive is to encourage digital literacy.  Of course it's a core component of ensuring that these massive investments we've talked about will have a demand side so there are many examples you can find.  Of course there is that first moment that was talked about of how do you first get people to want to embrace.  But once they have, then there's a variety of tools you can use, and use in a digital context, that can increase the comfort that people have, and their sense of security and how to navigate and increase tools.  And so we have done that with certain tools around a program called Digital You and it has had some effective impacts and I'm sure that there are many other examples from many other companies, as well.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you.  Mr. Mathews?

>> RAJAN MATHEWS:  In India certainly one of the great enablers is almost a push strategy where the Government has now had an act in place that every Governmental Department must have forms on the Internet or accessible through the Internet, must be all digitized, and so even simple things like booking a train ticket, which obviously the masses use, can be done online.

So people are finding out that they don't have to go at 2:00 in the morning to stand in line, but they can access this.  The Government has started these common Service Centers, where you can go and use a common facility even if you don't have the owned facilities, you can have shared facilities, and this is also proving an attraction, and because of this push strategy, people are finding that they must learn, they must access, and of course, affordability is already there, because service affordability is existing in India.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you very much, Mr. Rajan, for this explanation.  I think we have another question, the final question, because it is now 12:12 so we have some today.  I would like to give the floor to my colleague, Mr. Pepper, to finalize.

But before, this question, one question here, and after by the Rapporteur.  Here, please.  Excuse me.  You have a question there.

Thank you.

>> Good afternoon.  My name is Daniel Roscoe Garcia.  I'm from here in Mexico.  I've been listening to what is being said in the Forum.  I'm interested in the following:  If in the countries where you live have created a law or regulated to compel the authorities and the Government and to create a culture of Internet, because you speak of strategies, protocols, et cetera, but is there a law or a regulation in your countries that has been implemented elsewhere for that matter?

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you.  Madam Chairman, can answer, please.

>> YOLANDA MARTINEZ:  Yes, Mexico undertook a very important Constitutional reform so that the Internet is a Constitutional right.  We're one of the few countries that has that right and by law we have to have a policy of inclusion that falls under the responsibility of the State and that's the National Digital Strategy and by law, all digital mechanisms for citizen interaction, for people for instance with disabilities, also is included there, so there are important initiatives for education, for instance, to provide classrooms under the new educational model, with devices, so that there could be monitoring and follow‑up of the classes and of the teachers, and for mass training on computers so that we have a new generation of Mexicans that can make the most of the Internet and digital technology.

So in Mexico, we have one of the best examples of a Government that's committed and that has made the Internet a right in the Constitution.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  The floor to Mr. Raul, after Mr. Berger. 

>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  Right, I'm going to speak now with my Uruguyan cap on, not from The Internet Society.  Although there's no law in our country that makes that compulsory, it's not the only way of having public policy.  In Uruguay, there are very intense public policies in terms of making access available to all, connectivity to 100% of the country.  100% of schools and students have their own computers.

Where they are connected, they're online 24 hours a day.  And even the teaching of English comes into the schools via the Internet.

And now there's a project linked to what Edmon was saying earlier, using the experience of that educational plan for teaching adults with the same criteria.  Free computers are being given to the elderly and to adults so they can make use of those tools.  The Government is committed as well like the Minister from India was saying, to have 100% of Government processes undertaken through Government platforms and portals.

We had never been able to reach 100% of that in Uruguay but we're getting close.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Our friend Raul, the floor to Mr. Berger, please.

>> GUY BERGER:  Thank you.  In response to the speaker, I would refer you to the UNESCO web site, and if you look for media and information literacy at UNESCO, you will find three things.  One is some discussions about what is meant by digital literacy, what is covered by that or can be covered by that.

Number two, you will find curricula for teachers to train teachers about how to teach this media and information literacy including the digital side.

And third, you will find a tool which is very useful for a country to do a mapping as to its readiness to implement a media and information literacy policy.

What we do not have, but I would really encourage stakeholders to develop, is more information about how to use the net to teach about the net.  Because it's extremely expensive using old‑fashioned methods, training teachers in schools across a whole country to deal with these things.  We have to develop more cost effective, more creative ways, to build competency, media and information literacy competency about the Internet by using the Internet, and that is a challenge for us to do.

>> ABDUL YOUSSEF:  Thank you very much.  Thank you a lot.  Now I want to pass this to my colleague Mr. Pepper to tell you that when our friend from Ghana make his question, he asked also about local content and some access to data and open data.

I know that in the following session you have to moderate the issue of link to content.  Maybe you have something to tell us before giving the floor to Madam Carolyn.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you very much so yeah, it was great.  You also ‑‑ not only a great question but as Raul said, you could have been here.  That was one of the points of actually having the conversation, because people who happen to be sitting there, right, know as much as the people who are sitting here and this is about a conversation.

In terms of the ‑‑ one of the things is listening to the conversation about capacity‑building, we kept coming back to content, we consciously, by the way, had the capacity‑building part of the discussion and then flowing into the next discussion, which is about local content, local language, relevant content, and that kept already coming up, whether it was, you know, the responding to the earlier question about how do you get people to be interested, and you have grandparents connecting with their grandchildren.  That's relevant content, very relevant content.

The data, the ability for people to use the Internet, to learn about the Internet, right, as Guy just said.  That's part of the local content, relevant content.  And I don't think we can really separate these things.

And so we're going to ‑‑ Carolyn is now going to sort of pull out some pearls of wisdom, some points, and then we're going to move into a focus on relevant content.  Because what we're hearing over and over again is this is what's so important, because if we just have the connectivity, and we're not using it, so what?  Right?  And it's the content that makes it relevant and that makes it useful and it's the content that allows us to benefit from being connected to the Internet.

And so, you know, also, Yolanda, the questions about the universities and the training and all the programs here, making the Internet ‑‑ access to the Internet as a Constitutional right, these are all interrelated.  And these are really, I think, some great points.

So our Rapporteur, it's yours.

>> CAROLYN NGUYEN:  Great.  Thank you so much for such a rich discussion so I'll try to summarize.  If there are two words that I would summarize a discussion, use to summarize the discussion, it would be holistic and open‑mindedness in terms of approaching the obstacles for inclusive growth.  So there are basically three things.  The first one is that there is a need for a more holistic approach to capacity‑building to achieve the SDGs and inclusive growth.  There is recognition that access is the necessary but certainly not sufficient condition to achieve inclusive growth and that goes right back to what Pepper said regarding the need for content, so it's the need for both the supply side as well as the demand side.

Some of the factor that should be taken into consideration in terms of capacity‑building, capital investment are needed to build out both the supply and the demand side.  Literacy, the ability for people to enable and understand the content that's online.

Technology is sort of a given factor.  But one of the things that keeps on coming up a lot is the need for enlightened policy and regulation and legal framework.  It ranges from ‑‑ well, I should say that there is absolute agreement in terms of support from the Government to encourage investment, that includes things like Universal Service Funds, tax reforms, encourage innovation, National broadband plans, and then we have two really great examples in terms of Mexico, where there is a law that says Internet is a Constitutional right, and in Uruguay where there's a law but ubiquitous connectivity.  So it's very clear that regulation and legal framework are absolutely necessary for achieving growth.  But the one underlying element in terms of meeting this holistic approach is that multistakeholder and partnership are absolutely necessary and as was pointed out by our participant from Ghana, because that gets right at the issue of trust, with transparency and accountability, and also what's critical is the need to involve the local communities, local process management, the local communities really need to buy into the benefit that they will be getting.

So that's one in terms of a more holistic approach to capacity‑building.  Secondly, there's a need to have an open mind in approaching the issue of capacity‑building.  What was said is that technology is really fundamentally transforming societies and Government services.

The SDG takes the conversation from a primarily technical conversation to one that is more socioeconomic.  And the SDG gives a common platform for understanding what's involved in terms of National development, and therefore the need to have an open mind in how to approach this and achieve the goals.  Things that used to work will no longer work.  So some of the examples that were brought up in terms of an open mind, there's a need to have a more holistic approach to educating the user and communicate the benefit to each individual user so UNESCO has an approach about information literacy, where it is about not just about connecting but also understanding the Internet, understanding their rights and how to use the Internet to realize everyone's potential.

People need to experience the empowerment personally so the recommendation in terms of "run before walk," communicate the benefit to them.  Let them know what the empowerment feels like and what the need ‑‑ the benefits are, so that they can become involved in the process, but also are motivated to get online.

New approaches in terms of peer learning, and I would say that the peer learning also applies to all of us:  The IGF community, and also the policy stakeholder community that's involved.  Take note of what works and the context in which these practices were deployed, as well.  So a recommendation almost establish potentially for an intersessional work, best practice ‑‑ I'm sorry, policy options for inclusive growth and capacity‑building.  And then lastly, this was brought up and I think it's really a critical point in terms of the importance of metrics, not just to measure progress, but also to understand the magnitude of the investments that's absolutely needed to achieve the inclusive growth.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Great summary, Carolyn.  Thank you.  We're going to move into the next discussion, which is going to focus on relevant content.  Some of the people are going to be staying up here and some people are going to be moving and some people in the audience are moving up here so why don't we do that?

While we are doing that, I do want to respond to the question from our colleague from Ghana about data.  So there is a ‑‑ we had a session yesterday.  There's a project called One World Connected, and they have a booth out there and they have some really great information, and it's looking at existing ‑‑ at real‑world projects and identifying the data that we can use to evaluate, to plan, to diagnose gaps, and it's being led by Professor Yoo from the University of Pennsylvania so there's an entire session called:  Where's The Data?  And one of the recommendations from one of our colleagues and participants in that discussion, Alison Gillwald from South Africa, was that we need to think about creating and have access to data that's available publicly, so the data becomes almost a public good.

I like to talk about a data commons, because we need good data to make decisions, to identify what are the gaps and how do we close the gaps.  So your question about access to data I think is essential.  Answering that question is essential as we move forward so that we can do the types of planning and have the understanding that we need to move forward.

So thank you for asking that question.

So we now are going to move into the discussion on relevant content, language, and what does that mean.  We're going to start with Daniel, we're going to start with you.  You know him from the first panel, first discussion session, on inclusion.

And then we'll move to Raul and then we'll pick up some others, so, Daniel, please.

>> DANIEL ABADIE:  The more local the content is, more penetration the Internet has in the community.  If organizations, Governments and competence have not understood that yet, well, they're missing a part of the snapshot of how the world works, and the Internet ecosystem works, but the 62% in Argentina has access to Internet.  38 lacks.  It's not all a rosy picture, so one year ago, 1,000 points of contact had no Internet connection, and the Ministry of Communication launched a fiber optics project to connect the 1,000 local Governments that had no possibility of improving their systems and to reach out to their citizens and provide a better service, and at the same time, a process to provide wi‑fi free of charge in the main squares was implemented to fulfill the goal of connection.  But connection does not equal access.  It has to do at a local level, we have to stimulate the traditional ways of using local content, not geographically but I mean locally at a village level, at a city level, and that is linked to inclusion.

And as we discussed in the first part of this three‑party dialogue, when we talk about the dialogue between senior citizens and the youth we have to build a bridge between these two groups and identify how these two use social media to communicate with their grandchildren, for example.  It is all about working together, and that is what the Internet provides, a possibility of building a community, of providing opportunities.  Local entrepreneurs could teach other people in Argentina that they can sell products to people that are two or three kilometers away, so the question that people ask sometimes is the Internet, for what purpose?  So we, as Civil Society, and the technical community, we cannot go beyond that question, Internet, what for?  If we don't give an answer to that question, we will fall short in terms of connecting people.  We want the Internet to expand, but we need to generate local content for that to happen.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  Actually what we're going to do, Raul, sorry for a second, Megan Richards from the European Commission is here and she has to leave early so I'm going to bump Megan up now, if that's okay, so that you're not going to feel rushed and then we'll go back to Raul.

So this relevance question is so important, Daniel, so thank you for raising that, because it does go back to:  Why bother?  And it's actually how people are using and benefiting and integrating in their lives the Internet and the applications.  So thank you.  Megan?

>> M. RICHARDS:  Thank you very much, Bob.  I didn't realize I was going to get to go first so this is a great honor.  It's wonderful to be here of course.  I wanted to talk primarily about the importance of local languages in ensuring that local content is developed.  Rajan Mathews spoke about 26 Indian languages in the earlier panel.  In Europe, we have 23 official languages, I underline official.  Those are just languages that are used to translate into domestic law, European legislation.  There are many other Regional languages and local languages, and we have also in addition to languages in Latin script, with funny accents like, I'm not supposed to call them funny, interesting accents, umlauts, accent grave, et cetera.  We also have two other scripts, Cyrillic and Greek for the Greek language, so this adds a certain complexity, but what we see is the importance of using local languages and Internationalized Domain Names for ensuring that people have access.

Now, I'm using just this as one small example of where we are in Europe and how we're trying to ensure that these additional scripts and other languages are used more broadly, but if you think about providing access to the rest of the world, using other Internationalized Domain Names and using other languages is absolutely a priority in making sure that new Internet users can have access, first, and, second, that they can develop their own content, because local content is something that we think is particularly important.  It helps people take ownership of what they're doing.  It drives the digital economy locally and regionally, and it also helps people to communicate better.

And then another element that goes with this of course is the development of digital skills, which again help if they're in their local languages and local scripts, and I wanted to mention one other aspect, which is that in the new round of top‑level domains, which was launched at the end of, let's say, 2004, approximately, a very small percentage of the requests, the 1,930 requests for new top‑level domains were in Internationalized Domain Names, or in other languages, so we see that we really need to make a lot of progress there and then a plug for where I'm going next is a workshop which is specifically addressing multilingualism and the importance of different cultural recognition in access to the net and it's called workshop number 19 and it goes until 1:30.  So if Bob manages to finish on time you can still hear the last half hour of that workshop.

I think I better stop there, thanks.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you, Megan, and yes, we will aim to stop on time so people can move on to your workshop.  That would be great.  And the point that you just made about international Domain Names and internationalizing Domain Names and in other scripts, as well, is actually a big, big step forward, because for many years, that was not possible.  That is now possible.  So that was really an important point.  Thank you.

Raul?

>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  Thank you.  Okay, we know that we have been talking for a long time about the infrastructure, deployment, but we know that infrastructure is not the only driver for connectivity.  Really the Internet has to be relevant for the people.  If not, we are seeing in many parts of the world where the infrastructure is available that not everybody is connected and there are a high percentage of people that are still unconnected.

So one of the factors for making the Internet relevant for the people is the local content, and that's quite obvious, and local content but also in local languages, and in some countries in Latin America for example, in Central America to be more precise, that everybody assume that the Spanish is the language that everybody speak, but there are significant percentage of people that speak native indigenous languages and they are an alphabet in Spanish so we don't have content available in their languages, we are losing a huge percentage of the population, and they will never be connected.

Another way to ‑‑ is that when we talk about content, it's a very broad thing, because also services are formal local content and Government services are the most clear example.  This is one of the things that is in the most easy things to deploy that make really Internet relevant for other people.  The interaction with the Government is a very key factor for driving connectivity.  And the other things also the colleague Alejandro Pisanty talk to me yesterday about that that is very important is also the opportunities for making money so we have very good opportunities in the world that we do especially in India with our community network projects where we see that the people that we connect have the opportunity to double their incomes, and some Governments that use it to have incomes and now are having $200 income per month, which is a significant amount in their countries.  Just providing services to the neighbors, helping them to interact with the Government, selling things, buying things, and this is also motivation for connecting the people.  It's a way also to local content.

And the ISPs that we work a lot in improving the interconnection are very important that make the content to stay local, and improve the cost but also improve the experience of the users, and so it's having ‑‑ it's about having more content available, local content in local languages, and also improving the experience of the users.  And this is a cycle.  Because if we have local content and better experiences we have more users.  If we have more users we have more investment.  If we have more investment, so we have the infrastructure and so we close the cycle.

And thank you.  That's time out.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  Doctor, please?

>> WAEL ABDEL AAL:  So I've introduced myself in the morning.  A couple of points that change a little my mind set is that we first of all the Internet has a life of its own so governing it is a big challenge of course, and the second point is about Government, local Government, and the idea is that governments can be obstacles or can be facilitators, and it's important to have people like my dear friend José here who acts as a facilitator between the heavy bureaucracy of the government and the actual working environment, and I'll go into the ‑‑ our telehealth program which talks about content as well as delivery of actual health care.

So when we looked at our program, we started by going to the underprivileged, underserved populations in remote area in Egypt and we set up with the help of the Telecommunications Sector an Internet, a telemedicine program where we can help these remote areas and we started producing success and building on that, the remote doctor, the primary care doctor in the remote area started learning on the job while doing the actual interactions with the super Specialists at Cairo University so we added another part which is an online curriculum so the doctor will learn some information and he will go online and we couple that with an awareness campaign to the actual public, written in a local or a video session, targeting particular diseases or problems in this local area, but with a mindset that we are also, Internet is global so we are looking at exporting this information to other places.

We are working close with the Government as well as with the funding communities.  So we are aligning with people who can fund such structures and attracting them to the program, and looking at very well established ecosystems to sustain and progress, and it's becoming quite successful from one or two pilot studies.  We now have about 40 centers working all together and we have a demand to expand through the next year, so this was just a little bit of a synopsis so we're tying education awareness with actual delivery of health care, and moving forward with the program expanding it.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  It's a great example.  I was thinking also in your earlier intervention about the health care and remote health care.  That's pretty compelling content, right?  Because you can actually, you're saving lives, right?  That's actually a really compelling reason to be connected and get on.

>> WAEL ABDEL AAL:  Yeah and as I said before, when you provide such a program, the Government is more enticed to provide connectivity to even more remote areas because it's actually as we worked last year, only in travel money not medical, we saved about 2 billion Egyptian pounds per year, only travel money.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Yeah, that's pretty compelling and it's based on content.

>> WAEL ABDEL AAL:  Rather than the immediate excellent health.  We changed the medical result by 35%, in the local community, with no travel, and saving a lot of money so it's pretty much compelling but you know, Governments work in slow motion so you have to keep on having people like José to really work along ‑‑ it's extremely important and to have perseverance, because things are not going to happen overnight.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Exactly, so that's why sometimes I refer to myself, I'm an optimist, but I am a very impatient optimist.

>> WAEL ABDEL AAL:  And additional part is that when you provide this health care umbrella, other people from other nations around you can tap into it so we're looking now at the Nile basin so we already have provider doctors around from Cairo University so we're starting to work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to implant in Nile Basin clinics will which will not add any burden to our already scheduled physicians but you also have to be aware that it's not only what you want to do, it's what others need, so what do they need?  What kind of expertise do they need?

So it's a very fantastic journey and adventure that I think has got me over here from being a physician looking at patients.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  This is great.  So really thank you for coming.  Dr. Liu.

>> CHUANG LIU:  Thank you.  Thank you for providing me such an opportunity to address the issue of the Big Data for the Sustainable Development Goals and the local content.  We are in the Big Data society now.  Volume of new data created every day.  More and more people are involved in the data activities.  Since the Sustainable Development Goals issued last year, almost each of the stakeholders are looking forward to developing the data sites related with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Since the goals, there are 17 goals and 169 target issues and the topics.  The data is so diverse and so complicated so no single organization can do it all.  So it is necessary to develop the data with the local content and using the Internet technology, networking globally.  How to do it?

Here, I take our experience to our case, so we share this with you.  So, one, first of all, so we need a common understanding by the methodology, top‑down methodology, so we work with the global observation and the ICSU data system, ICSU CODATA, and several other International Organizations to develop the data sharing principles.

So in the year before last year, we worked together in Nairobi, focused on the developing countries, so we issued the data sharing in developing countries.  We called this Nairobi Data Sharing Principles, so we got a common understanding, so full and open data for free to share is the further research communities, we got a common understanding.

We know in the data we have three parts of the data.  One is Government data.  Second is the research community data, is funded by the public funding.  Third one is private commercial data set.  So I am working on the research data, and this is mostly from the Institutes or universities.

Second one, after we got a common understanding of the full and open data for all, so we need to take the principles into action, by bottom‑up methodology.  So we make sure each of the data sets get peer reviewed and including all information, including the metadata, data paper, and the data products, to make sure each of the data sets the Regional ones, are accessible, reliable and useful, with intellectual property protection.

After this, third one, we build up specific target data publishing and the sharing infrastructure.  So I have this ‑‑ I think you have this sheet.  In this part, we have the web site here.  This is a case.  So the fourth is the networking globally.  Each of these, we have the DOI, Digital Object Identifier, a link to the 35 journal publishers, researcher ID, geodata core, the data system and the co‑data developing countries infrastructure and so on.  So we make sure this data in the local content not isolated, but linked and contributed to all the world.

And the fifth, the capacity‑building, since it's Big Data is a new issue in the world, especially we use the training workshops during the last 14 years.  We work co‑data so set up approval in developing countries.  This is the unique team in the world focused on the data issue in developing countries lasting for more than 40 years.

So we have workshops in China, Mongolia, Colombia, Brazil, Cuba, South Africa, and Kenya, and next year, we will have our training workshop in India, and Madagascar.  From our experience, we realize, one, open data.  We agree to benefit not only scientific community but all society, is capacity for developing countries.

Second, bottom‑up methodology is necessary and critical issue so we suggest that you continue to pay more attention to the local content in the bottom‑up methodology.

Third one is dealing locally networking globally is an efficient way to help developing countries so I'm sure if we do this, we will really benefit not only society, but data contributors themselves, too.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you very much.  Another kind of content is the Big Data, right?  It's the data we're going to be using and getting the benefits.  Great point.  Thank you very much.  Next is Eric.  From AT&T.

>> ERIC LOEB:  My pleasure.  What I love about Wael's example is it's taking something that is of tremendous impact locally in terms of the fundamental need and then thinking about the ways with technology that it just bends the curve on productivity in a Sector that stands to benefit so much from it and then it also replicates in other uses.

Another example that falls into that, that AT&T and DirecTV which we have operations throughout Latin America is in the education field and so I just focus on that similarly in terms of highly relevant local content, for a Sector that up until very recently has been fairly immune to productivity gains through technology, and that now you are seeing just some incredible concepts, whether it is with distance learning or it is with full MOOC curricula and again tailored content that can be very relevant at a local level and to reach into areas where the resources may not be there, we've had this program through DirecTV Latin America, Escuela Plus and it's deployed in Argentina, Uruguay, Columbia and Chile, and it's using the paid TV satellite delivered infrastructure to be able to reach some of the most remote and in many cases underserved communities for education, with a complete curricula, teacher assistance, student engagement interactivity, and I highlight it because if people are interested in this, the impact has been really astounding.  It's almost 6,000 schools now that are utilizing the curricula, about almost 20,000 teachers fully trained in the pedagogy and over 800,000 students.

And that is something that has been developed from a relatively small team, but using the technology benefits and the scale and the reach and the feedback that we get from the teachers on adjustments they need to the pedagogical material, it can have such a multiplier impact.

And so again, what could be more relevant for local content than education, and incorporating the tools of technology to teach so that you are instinctively comfortable with the technology at the same time.  And so that's been a just very exciting experience and project to be involved with.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you, Eric, and the incremental cost on the technology platform is nothing, right?  Because the platform's there.  And then the focus on building the content capacity.  Right?  That's great.  It scales.

Jari, please.

>> JARI ARKKO:  Thank you.  And just before jumping into the local content piece, I want to talk about a slightly more general problem and of course everybody has been talking about the connection of the remaining billions of people to the Internet.

But as I've been saying this week, that that is not enough.  We actually need quality and quantity.  We need the openness, the local content, the ability of everyone to create services and businesses, no matter where they are, being able to trust the Internet services, not to have surveillance or censorship.

And we were talking about basically the quality of the Internet from the point of view of the local community, not just the technical aspect of it.  You've got the broadband and I think getting the Internet to everyone sounds a little bit hollow if it's just about giving access to a global product.  The Internet is not a cable TV Channel from the other side of the planet.  People need something that responds to their local needs and ask them to create what they need.

And no matter who runs for services, getting them in your local language is crucial so how can we improve on this?  And there's various responses so some of the actions are global such as the work we do to improve privacy of the technology.  We also look at things like Internationalized Domain Names, power constraints and many other issues and we're eager to learn more.  We have a Research Group that's looking at the challenges of a growing digital divide but there's also plenty to do not just with the basic technology but the implementation of technology.

While there's, to give an example, while there's often support for different languages in various Web platforms or products, many of these services get them wrong and just to pick on a particular wide used product that you would have thought is tested well, but it's not necessarily the case, so iTunes give me everything in Danish not in Finnish or English that I could speak, and there's no reason for that.  Maybe they don't have Finnish language for some of their content and they think Danish is good enough, because Denmark is close to Finland, regardless of whether I'd actually be able to read or understand that.

And if that's a case in one case for one person, but what about the thousands and hundreds of thousands of different products and applications in the world, how well they do in that space, probably not so well.

Many of the actions are local too not just global and I'm not saying that the local actions are necessarily easy either.  There are many practical barriers from economics to competition between different things like local content and social media content and so on.

But there are technical things that can help such as Internet exchange points that are local helps you interconnect more reasonably.  Sea cables, international connections that provide efficient connectivity.  Local cloud services that use the creation of local services.  We should separate where the infrastructure is from who provides the content from how well the content matches the local language and so forth.  I have some personal content that in Finnish.  It runs in Frankfurt, and that's just fine.  The social regulatory and business environment can help, removing barriers for people to run Internet or content services within the country is of course crucial, answering competition, supporting media and art communities, and so on, and Governments can and should of course set an example by providing their own services in the Internet, as has been noted here earlier.

So in my conclusion, the content is really the king here in this issue, and once again we find that multiple stakeholders are needed to work together to make progress, ranging from technical to policy and from global to local.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you, Jari.  That was really, by the way I love the example of giving you content in Danish instead of Finnish.  So we've talked about education.  We've talked about health care.  We've talked about Big Data.  We've talked about all kinds of content.

The one type of content, local content, that we actually have not yet talked about, which is one of the types of content that actually draws a lot of people, is entertainment so we're actually quite lucky.  We have a famous Bollywood Director here, Bobby Beta, and Bobby is in the audience.  This is another example of people in the audience could be sitting here, we could be sitting there.  There's really no difference, so Bobby, thank you for being here, and I appreciate your reflections.

>> BOBBY BETA:  Hi.  Thank you for this opportunity.  I produce content for the entertainment sector, and that's actually 70% of traffic on the net in most countries, possibly if that wasn't there, we wouldn't have had this kind of development on the net.

So I think we deserve a little bit of sort of focus on this.  Now, specifically what's happened is that the Internet has become a new kind of delivery system, whether it's OTT or whether it's the YouTubes of the world, but strangely enough, it's the first time in the history of entertainment that a change in the delivery system has actually changed the way content is produced, and it's changed the way content is consumed.  I'm talking about entertainment content now.  And that actually has sort of put the entire relationship between content and delivery in turmoil.

And while there are some absolutely fantastic things about it and especially when it comes to local content, we have, and India has taken to the net very, very well so we have 300 million users and most of them are into listening to music in some form or watching, depending on the quality of phone they have, and the beauty is in all languages so now local content that was not able to travel because of its size is now able to travel, because the promotion, the distribution, everything is happening on the Internet, which is a very, very selective and low‑cost ‑‑ selective and elective both low cost way of content traveling.

The other beauty is that this content is now traveling to 50 million Indians that do not live in India, and that's a very big one, because this is larger than the population of most countries.  It's impossible to reach them through cinema.  It was impossible to reach most of them through television.  Today it is becoming possible to reach them because each one can make a choice and you can see the importance of what's happening in India when you realize that Amazon, Netflix and these companies are in India producing local content today.  They're putting sort of large amounts of money in producing local content and that shows that, yes, the opportunity is there.

I'd like to sort of close this with the one big challenge that we have that while we've changed the way we produce content, we've changed the way we consume content.  What we haven't yet been able to change is the way we monetize this content and we genuinely believe that unless that part of the equation is sorted, you'll find that the content will struggle and start drying up and you'll be left with, it's very important and interesting sort of contribution of the Internet, but that's not sort of main stake of the entertainment Sector, and that will need sort of new ways of monetization, and I think it's forums like this that should give it a focus and if you can crack that, I think the Internet has a long way to go in entertainment.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  Thank you, Bobby.  Yeah, so two important take‑aways I think from Bobby, from what you said.  One, local content can become global and reaching 50 million Indians with your content globally which couldn't be done before, that's a game changer.  Then there's the other question which we're all sort of struggling with, not just one part on the content and the value chain but also the distribution.

We heard earlier and Rajan is here, from the cellular operators in India, and that is:  Business models, right?  The change in the business model.  How do we finance?  How do people pay?  How do we consume?  These are all things that are changing, that's really important.  So we're going to open it up now.  We're going to be able to go a few minutes over because we started a few minutes late so we have our first question intervention from our colleague here from Cuba.  And I want to thank you by the way for your work as we were planning this session.  It's been really great working with you but you have a question for the panel, please.

>> Right.  First of all, I would like to ask Yolanda, Raul and Daniel for their permission to pose my question and make my comments in English so the rest of the panelists can take part in my discussion.  If you don't mind, I'll do that.

What Robert just said and also Bobby, the problem of monetization of the content.  As you know, in Latin America is one of the areas of the world in which less local content is in the Internet.  There's a study by Argentinians that says that in Latin America only 26% of the content is local and it's lower compared with other regions of the world, even Africa.

So one of the problems is how to finance local content, how to finance the creation of local content, as Bobby said, the monetization, especially when some of those local content has to be in websites that are free for the user, not pay per view, because yesterday, in the working shop about local content but mainly entertainment, it was movies, there was other Directors there, they have a business model through VHS or some other streaming services there are today, that it's true, it's very low fee, but if the content is good enough and have enough viewers, then that way, it can finance and recover the investment for the local content.

But there's many local content that we want for health or for education or for agriculture that we want to be free for the user in the Internet.  We know that in developed countries, advertising industry is so huge that this is usually financed.  That's how Google do it and many other ones, through banners and through advertising but unfortunately in Latin America and in many developing countries, advertising is not enough for finance.

Yesterday, one of the producers of a movie said that she put it first in YouTube and tried to get advertisement to recover the investment.  It was not enough.  And it was an English‑speaking movie, or series.

So what I ask you, if you can think about:  What business model could be used in developing countries, especially in Latin America, to finance these applications that need to be free for the users?  Applications for health care, application for social inclusiveness, for education, for all this.

We know for instance in Latin America we have an award called the FRIDA Awards.  Many of these fantastic applications, we have seen in this FRIDA award but are made through grants or donations and the history shows that when the donations and the grants dried out, the applications die, are not sustainable on time, because it's not having a steady stream of income that can serve to be there and to create new ones.

So this is my question for the panelists.  What business model could you think about that?

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Great.  Great question.  Thank you very much.  So why don't we have ‑‑ see if anybody wants to answer that and Alejandra also wanted to have an intervention but why don't we start with this question first.  Anybody?  Yes?  Please. 

>> WAEL ABDEL AAL:  I totally agree with you, sir.  There are three theories that businesses are sustained online or through the Internet, either pay as you go or a subscription model or a free model which needs to be sponsored somehow.

Whether the sponsor comes from a Government or a donations or whatever it is.

Or sponsors through companies.  And my input, which we use these techniques in our telehealth program, but looking also forward that drying up what happens next so maybe the first part, may be free and then you go into pay as you go, or in our Health Sector, maybe through insurance, health insurance and so on.

So ‑‑ but the model needs to be individualized.  It cannot be across the Board.  So I enjoyed very much the talk about the entertainment, but it will be completely different when you tackle health care and other things.

So this is the secret sauce which makes Facebook or Google or whoever succeed, and in fact make billions of money, why we do not actually subscribe to it.  So this is a million dollar or a billion dollar question.  It needs to be individualized.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  What we're going to do since we're running up against the end, I absolutely want everybody here that wants to respond, to respond but I'll try to keep the responses short, but yeah, I agree completely, the way you laid that out.  And this is one of the big, big questions.  We'll go Jari, then Eric, then Raul, and then Alejandra. 

>> JARI ARKKO:  Just very briefly, I fully agree this is a big issue.  It's not just an issue in Latin America.  It's a global issue.  As one example, the news media in all of the world is struggling with this.

The difference in one of the trends is competition between user generated and professionally generated content, and it doesn't mean that professional content creation goes away.  It just means that it has to compete in different ways and transform itself, and we'll have to work on that.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Eric?

>> ERIC LOEB:  So the two comments and questions together are really interesting, because they get at traditional business models of sectors, called the connectivity or Telecom Sector, and the entertainment Sector, and the traditional business model assumptions have been so changed in recent years.  It's something that the company I'm with, AT&T, we've thought quite a lot about, and it actually is the premise of our proposed merger with Time Warner, and it is based on the business models and it's based on a very fundamental conviction:  The future of mobile is video and the future of video is mobile.

This is how things are coming together, and the point that gets very interesting in this for these traditional sectors, what are the business models that you can use when you've made a very significant capital investment in order to recover it?  And to do so in a manner that is accretive of value to a consumer, a good value.  And that gets at the point of what flexibility do you have to try multisided business models so you're not solely dependent on subscription or on the media side, you're not solely dependent on distribution but you can maybe blend subscription, distribution, advertising and have direct relationships between that.

So the core to the point, in I think much of this is that there needs to be a fair amount of flexibility to think about the business models that can be used so that rather than counting on just one traditional way for revenue, there may be smaller, marginal accretive ways of achieving what you need to do, and delivering a value to a customer that they can afford in order to consume in the first place.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Raul?  Oh, yes, Professor Liu, and you'll go right down, please.

>> CHUANG LIU:  So from my experience, we have three different models, business models, in the China experience.  The very beginning we say if you can make money, I develop some content to share.  This is business one to one.  This is not good experience in China but no we don't want to go this way.  We want to open and share, and the Government invests money to this and then the international code, international support also possible so work together and develop some kind of data and share.

But mostly share in China, in the second phase.  Why share worldwide?  But later China thinks no, this is no good.  We need it globally and now it's open, it's more and more data is open, go to the global share.  And the Government is investing some kind of data, some kind of money.

And same experience in South Africa.  South Africa, and now Kenya is the same.  I think this is good for Cuba to reference.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  Raul?

>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  Sometimes we have a chicken‑egg loop because we don't have bigger markets because we don't have relevant content.  We don't have relevant content because we don't have a big market.  The Government has a role in that.  They have always had a role in promoting local culture, local productions, and this is ‑‑ and also providing their own content.

And this is one thing that I wanted to say:  Other things, we have to see the opportunities.  Uruguay is a country of 3 million people, but there are 600 million Spanish speakers in the world, or more, and so far it has been impossible for movie makers for example to reach out this big market and now it is possible.  And I have an anecdote, one guy in Uruguay ‑‑ he publishes YouTube short movie ‑‑ on Friday, he turn off his computer and he turn on his computer on Monday, and he had millions of emails, because many people had ‑‑ sorry, millions of views in the ‑‑ in his video, and he has a lot of emails from Hollywood trying to contact him.  He's a movie director in Hollywood.  This is an opportunity how we can make our content available for a much larger market, so it is challenging but also we have different opportunities.  Thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you.  Alejandra, last word before we go to Carolyn?

>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY:  Thank you.  Thank you.  In preparation for this panel, I have a chance to study some of the documents that went behind the work that has been displayed here stellarly by all panel participants.  Congratulations, but I have a couple of comments that may still be relevant.  First I have to say I am extremely bothered by the focus on content.

We were discussing whether access is king or content is king in 1996.  By that time we always all realized that what's king is service, what's king is relevance, what's king is changing state.  Content may change state from non‑informed to informed but speaking about content conveys the idea of something passive.  It is published, it is there, it's something for you to read.  Content means there's a container and means someone is consuming the content and it doesn't imply the interaction and the service and the change of state.  So service that means, or value add, means someone being able to make a transaction to pay their taxes, to do something with the Government, which is very important, or to make a sale locally.

I have an example of a girl who's a student who sells through e‑Commerce but delivers at the gates of the subway in Mexico City, so she delivers hand to hand and collects in cash.  The tax authority doesn't have to know about it.

You have Government services, you have health.  In Government services, a discussion was had with Yolanda, you have to keep the very valuable information that the Government has already produced.  It's very highly valued by people and keeping the time series is very important and health of course, a great example.  We should not be blinded by the content.  We should still work very much with interoperability, with accessibility, with all the technical standards, moving your content to HTML5 so they can be available on all platforms so you don't have to distribute to each.

Also in this field, again not be blinded by the flashing nice things that you can do with apps when you can also keep the open Web standards that don't require your capacity in your device.

And one very brief final point:  You should not overextend some of these assumptions.  You should look at two or three things that are going to be demanded even with passive content.  One of them is cloud interoperability.  These are very deep technical issues that have great impact for the producers, especially for people with low money who are putting together two or three cloud companies for their services.  And the other thing is the ability to, for users to make mash‑ups dealing with a more open environment for intellectual property is key for people to consume not only to consume, but for people to actually produce these things.

And the final point on the business models raised by Juan Fernández from Cuba and by other panelists, the money is not there.  We should admit that companies are not going to pay for online advertising what they are paying for television and printed press advertising, not for a long while, so the models are also being successful because people are doing with less.  Raul's friend used a portable camera and a Mac, simple computer to do the editing.  He didn't need a $100 million production.  That we have to foster, thank you.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you very much.  Really good points, also pulling the technology back and also reminding us that some of the debate, right, is old.  But one of the things that was different I think is it wasn't just focusing on content as static but it really is about the interaction and using the content, because using, integrating it, and interacting with it, right?  And also becoming content producers is actually the thing that makes the difference.

>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY:  The name frames it wrongly.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Thank you, Alejandro.  Carolyn, can you make sense ‑‑ this has been a great conversation, so before we close...

>> CAROLYN NGUYEN:  Great.  Thank you, Pepper.  So a couple of major points that came out.  In terms of ‑‑ so what everyone really agreed on was the critical need to support local languages and local content.  And here's an editorial point:  I think that most of the panelists spoke about IDNs, but I think it's also really critical to be able to support internationalized email addresses, for example, and that's some critical technical work that's going on between both the IETF and ICANN so bringing the technology, so technology has a large component in enabling this.

There was also a conversation around the fact that if there are more contents and allow me to use that term for the moment and I will go back to address Alejandro's point about active content and services, but if more content, I should say more active services, will lead to better user experience and being able to answer the question of, why the Internet and what is it for, which can lead to more users, and hence more investment.  So really the ability of having more content and more localized content will close that loop and may actually get us to the point that the challenge of business models.

So there's that loop there.  And development ‑‑ so in order to enable the development of localized content, development of digital skills are then foundational to achievement of the SDGs, so let's bring the conversation back to the topic for this session.

So how to drive the creation of local content.  A couple different ways were mentioned.  One is Government services, and again that brings us back to the point that Yolanda made at the beginning of the session.  Government can be obstacles or facilitators.  If it can be demonstrated to Government that there are benefits to be delivered, for example, cost savings for health care or improved education, then there may be potentially additional incentives for funding more Government services.

So again there's a loop there in terms of being able to demonstrate benefits that will bring in additional investments.

Secondly, creation of local content can be driven by opportunities to make money, including for example, local content can become global.  Entertainment and local services, in local language is sorely needed.  For example only 26% of the content is local in Latin America.  However, there's question around a supporting environment to enable production of local entertainment, including the whole conversation around what is the appropriate business models?

Will there be new business models that should be explored?  What flexibility should be allowed in supporting the business models?

However, there is also a question in terms of content that are necessary, such as content for health, education, et cetera.  So there's still I believe that the question of investment needed to produce content is still an outstanding question that needs to be addressed going forward.

Thirdly, again, in terms of driving creation of local content, is the ability to share relevant content globally, and here there's an interesting conversation around the fact of being able to share local data, more globally.  And that's a capability that hasn't been there before, but however, that needs bottom‑up methodology, as well as platforms.  And here technology becomes a central part of the conversation again.  There needs to be an enabling infrastructure for this.  If users are going to use the Internet, privacy, security, and hence distribution points, IXP, interoperability of content, interoperability of platforms and open standards are all necessary and critical in order to drive this.

And then lastly, and we hear this throughout this panel, is that Government has a role in encouraging local content development.  However, multistakeholder model and process is absolutely necessary, technical and policy and business, as well as in this particular case local and global, as well.

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Wow, Carolyn, that was great, pulling that together.  Oh, that is fantastic.  Thank you.

We're wrapping up.  I'd like to just ‑‑ I'm going to turn it back to our Chair, Yolanda.  But I first want to thank my Co‑Moderator, Dr. Youssef.  I also would like to thank Andrea.  I don't know if she's still here but has been working on the main sessions making them actually work.

And thanking our host, our Host Country and you've done great, but I'll turn it back to you, as our Chair.  And really appreciate it.  And all of the panelists, those that are up here, those who are now sitting in the audience, but thank you very much, Yolanda?

>> YOLANDA MARTINEZ:  Undoubtedly very important thoughts.  Thank you all so very much for your ideas, contributions to this discussion.  I invite you to continue to make the most of this Forum, and to make the most of Mexico's culture, and to continue with this engagement, this passion that exists amongst all of us.  Those of us up here and those of you down there because at the end of the day we're all very important actors to continue to be committed to ensuring that no one is left behind from access of the Internet.  We need to continue to promote responsible use of the Internet, especially let us leave no one behind.

Thank you very much.  It is 1:25 p.m., and as such, I adjourn this session.  Thank you all.

[Applause]

>> ROBERT PEPPER:  Could all of the panelists, the people who come up, we'll take a picture together.

[End of session]