The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 21 December 2017. 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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FINISHED FILE
12TH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE
INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM 2017
SHAPE YOUR DIGITAL FUTURE!
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
19 DECEMBER 2017
OECD PROJECT GOING DIGITAL: MAKING THE TRANSFORMATION WORK FOR GROWTH & WELL‑BEING
12:15 LOCAL TIME
ROOM XI‑A
>> MOLLY LESHER: Good afternoon. Welcome everyone on OECD Project Going Digital: Making the Transformation Work for Growth & Well‑being. We really appreciate you all coming out.
I warmly thank the panelists that came here today. We have Carolyn Njuyen, director of technology from Microsoft. We have Johannes Ruhl, a counselor at the Swiss Delegation to the OECD. We have Olga Cavalli, currently a teacher who also has extensive experience with Internet issues in Latin America. We have Suso Baleato, who is now at Harvard, and he specializes in privacy and data protection, cybersecurity and AI.
At the back of the room we have my colleague Duncan Cass‑Beggs, head of the strategic foresight unit, and I'm Molly Lesher and I'm coordinating the project.
As you all know, digital transformation, it has risen to the top of the policy Agenda not only in national governments but on the international level, we see this in the G7, we see it in the G20 context among others. Now we'll move to the next slide.
This is really why OECD members asked us to undertake, a large cross‑cutting project on digital transformation. This project basically involves almost every policy community at the OECD. It is basically everything but for national security and defense. We really have three main objectives with the project. One is to basically understand the digital transformation and how it impacts the economy and society. The second, it is really to provide policymakers with tools to ensure a whole of government‑forward looking approach to policymaking in the digital age. The last one is to really help overcome what we see as the gap between technology development and policy development.
Now this session will focus largely on one specific part of the going digital project, which is the scenarios, but before handing it over to Duncan to have him walk you over that, I wanted to give you a broad overview of the project.
If we move to the next slide ‑‑ there we go ‑‑ the project basically has three main buckets, components, the first one is really to try to understand the digital transformation from a horizontal perspective. We have several different projects in the stream of work, one I would like to highlight is the identification of vectors, digital transformation. This is really trying to identify the core properties of digital transformation and about what they mean for all of the different policy areas.
We have identified several different vectors, they're grouped in three broad areas. One is around scale, scope, speed. This is really the idea that digital transformation, firms can scale up very quickly with relatively little investment in capital or labor.
The second, it is around ownership, assets, economic value. This is really the idea that value from digitalized information can be stored anywhere, really decoupling value from ownership.
The third, it is around relationships, markets, ecosystems. This is really the idea that information and data flows seamlessly across networks and borders, really challenging traditional notions of sovereignty and territoriality.
We're working on these vectors. Now we're moving on ‑‑ go back there ‑‑ the second big, big project in this horizontal stream. This is an important part of the project. It is we're trying to develop an integrated policy framework, this is really work in progress. We have been working for about a year on this across the OECD, and the main point of developing this integrated policy framework is really to change the way people think about policymaking in the digital age. We have identified a series of eight building Blocks that are important to digital transformation. The idea is to get out of the traditional silos and it is reflected in our ministries and our departments and see digital transformation in an integrated way. We know that policymaking in one area can have implications in another not just at the national level, but at the local and regional level and at the international level as well. So I'm not going to go into all of the blocks, but just to highlight one thing I think that helps illustrate the framework, the idea about skills.
We know that skills is really important to digital transformation, having it be a success. You notice we don't have the skills building block. We look at skills from three different angles, one is you need skills to effectively use digital technologies, that's in the use building block. You also need skills for work, not just about using technology, it is about high‑performing work practices, managerial skills and then you need sort of skills for life and that's what's in the well‑being block there. That gives you a sense of how we're trying to develop this framework.
If we go to the next slide we see the second big bucket of work.
We're basically not looking horizontal now. We're looking in the silos. This is analysis of digital transformation, in particular policy areas and work. We have over 80 projects in this stream of analysis, work has already started to come out. You see some pictures there. We have a report on it digital transformation and transport, automated trust. We had a big ministerial digital transformation energy markets, we have done some work on competition, what is algo rhythmic transparency for competition these days, tax, labor, skills among many others.
That leads me to the next slide. The third sort of big bucket of the project, this is what we're calling the cross‑cutting activities. This is analysis of digital transformation in some, but not all policy areas and it really tries to crack some of the tough nuts. What's digital transformation for job skills and the nature of work, we're going to be looking in depth and the probability of automation, various occupations, what is the adjustment mechanisms that may look like.
There is another stream of work on productivity, competition, market openness. What's it mean for productivity, how is it impacting competition, how is it changing the nature of trade. We have some work on digital trade and market openness that's feeding into the project here.
The last big thematic bucket is about well‑being. Not just about work and the economy, it is about people and society and using the OECD well‑being framework. We'll look at this issue through a digital lens and look at issues, social side, health side among others.
We probably wouldn't be at the OECD if we didn't have a big focus on measurement. We're looking at how we measure digital transformation and national statistics, which is hard. We're looking at measuring digital transformation with respect to data flows which is also hard, trying to measure citizen trust. We're going to try to put together a core set of going digital indicators that link then to each of the building Blocks in the framework.
With that really short overview, I'll pass over to Duncan to give you an in‑depth peak at what we're doing on foresight.
>> DUNCAN CASS-BEGGS: Hello. Good afternoon. I'm Duncan Cass‑Beggs. I'm the counselor for strategic foresight at the OECD and I'm delighted to be here today with you to have what I hope will be a bit of an interactive discussion at the end of our presentations and to draw from your experience and backgrounds in helping us think through some of our scenarios work that we'll tell you about.
As Molly mentioned, the Going Digital Initiative, it's a massive initiative engaging all parts of the OECD right now in thinking through what the digital transformation could mean in all of the areas of policy that we have covered. I like to say, I like to encourage people around the organization to really see that this digital transformation has potential to really challenge the fundamental issues in each and every area of policy that we're working in.
Now what I'll talk to you about is a piece of a bigger initiative, the scenarios, the four sight scenarios, it is initially designed to provoke and encourage more strategic thinking about the future, some more really out of the box thinking to stretch our thinking.
What are the scenarios? The first thing we want to make clear, these are not predictions, they're not recommendations. Rather, what we're trying to develop is a set of plausible, provocative alternative futures. The purpose is really to stretch the thinking. So why do we do this? We do this to help prepare for uncertainty. It is probably always a good idea to engage in alternatives to different scenarios. And in this time of rapid change and unprecedented global scale, this is arguably more important than ever that individuals, governments, Civil Society prepare not just for the future that they're expecting but for the range of plausible alternatives that could come and surprise them.
The way we can use scenarios then is to help us identify new opportunities and challenges that we might not have seen sooner and help prepare for them.
It also helps one to take policies that one already has and has already developed and say, okay, this policy, this strategy we have now, it is well designed for the future that we're expecting. Would it still work well if we found our is everybodies in a different type of scenario? How future proof, how adaptive, responsive and resilient are the policies?
Finally, it is giving input into us thinking about the future we want. Our scenarios are not visions, not as operational, they're not meant to be a statement of what's desirable, they're meant to stretch people's thinking to have a broader conception of how the future could be, from that, that can generate some raw materials from which one can then have conversations about what are the elements of the different scenarios that we have wanted to pull together as the vision of what we're trying to strive for in the future.
If one starts developing a vision for what you want from the future without looking more broadly of how that future could be, one will end up designing visions that are very similar and planned very similar to today rather than to our aspirational timeframe. Our Going Digital, it is looking at the digital transformation and how to impact. We asked how to contribute value to that. We tried to do this really in two ways, asking two questions, I think that these questions, while we were applying them to the OECD, they're questions that you could bring back to all of your organizations as well to help provoke your thinking about the digital transformation.
The first step, it is to ask people to think what if the digital transformation came about even faster and further than expected? There is a lot of uncertainty. This is the first key uncertainty. How fast will a lot of the technological changes emerge and how quickly will they impact and to what scale? We recognize uncertainty. For the sake of pushing our thinking, imagine that this stuff came ‑‑ imagine the plausible extreme that a lot of these developments and ‑‑ because I think there is a considerable risk that we continue to be under prepared and we're underestimating the level of change that we could see in the coming 10, 15 # years.
The second step, we said consider the plausible extremes we could face across a range of different critical uncertainties.
To give you one example of a critical uncertainty we hear about, this is the impact of automation, technology on the future of work. On one hand, you will have world class experts who will say this is really not a problem. A lot of jobs will be disrupted, but we'll create new jobs just as we have always in the past and we will have unemployment rates that continue to be very low. On the other hand, you have equally reputable experts coming out with statistics 20, 30, 40% of technological unemployment that we could be facing.
Our point is rather than as organizations thinking, well, the moderate, reasonable, responsible thing to do is just to come down the middle line, to sort of find an estimate, a prediction that someone in between those extremes, it is actually to say, to recognize, we don't know. We're a ‑‑ the world's experts are in a state of high uncertainty about what is going to happen in this area and what we actually need to do is to consider the various potential extremes, plausible extremes and ask what would that mean for policy.
Quickly, to run you through part of what we have been doing in our thinking here, we start from this idea that what's ‑‑ what is the digital transformation? It is really a combination of a whole range of technologies that are rapidly developing and they're rapidly expanding and each of these areas, be it Cloud computing, big data, particularly Artificial Intelligence, it is huge, rapid, the transformational developments taking place recently, it is actually how they are all come together and create a new ecosystem that is potentially globally available and it is allowing new business models as well as really generating the basis of a new economy and society on a global scale. We're seeing the beginnings of that and this is saying how could that go further. What does that look like? What are the different ways this could go?
The next slide.
Some of the ‑‑ the first steps we said, not only pushing people into the future, we're saying, okay, what are reasonable assumptions we could make? These are not predictions but for the sake of argument, let's imagine what if we found ourselves in a world in 2030 with universal connectivity, everybody on the planet had a smartphone and the power of today's smartphone and 4G connectivity everywhere on the planet by 2030. It is certainly by no means a done deal. It is within the reigns of the plausibility.
What if we see the world in which business models, digital business models are disrupting most industries? We have seen this recently with taxis, automobiles, in accommodation, online entertainment, of course, what if we see this expanding out throughout across industries really and we're in a world of really rapid disruption. What if we see that physical production is moving increasingly localized and automated, most of the global trade we see is actually not in physical products, but in digital files if we see a high degree of automation of work tasks relative to what we humans do now in 2017, virtual world predominates.
Whether through telepresence, working through virtual reality workplaces, we find ourselves in a world where people really increasingly can live anywhere and work anywhere. Of course, this is the most guaranteed in this, really just as the whole world becomes connected almost by definition, most of the Internet users, creators on the Internet, they're located in Asia and Africa. Those are things we start with to get the mindset to let's imagine the world like that and we face key critical uncertainties. We went, we talked to people and we're still in the process of doing this, talking to people in the various policy areas and asking them what do they ‑‑ what keeps them up at night, what do they wonder or what are they not sure about when they think about this future where they see, yes, most likely it will go this way. Really, you don't know.
We could see the world going in a different way. We're saying, okay, let's identify what the critical uncertainties are. Think of the plausible extremes and then what we have done, we have brought those into and tried to group them in scenarios that I'll mention briefly at the end.
I wanted to give a few examples of the ‑‑ of some critical uncertainties that came up so far. This is an evolving list.
One of the big ones, really about who controls the data. There are questions now about individuals, are individuals going to demand greater control over the data in terms of the ability to access and trade themselves, the law, the key strokes that they may have given, all of the pieces of their personal data, what could be considered personal data that's currently being collected by corporations. There is an issue there.
Could there be a real shift to giving individuals greater control there? Another one, of course, governments, are governments going to have ‑‑ gain a significant ownership, control of data of individuals, corporations, again, obviously where a lot of the data is residing now. Then, another question, it is what many people are seeing, seeing data as the new oil, it is fundamental importance because it is the raw input into Artificial Intelligence, which is a key creator of value in this newspaper Digital Economy but there is suggestions that we're in a world in 2030 where data is the so ‑‑ you walk down the street, there are so many sensors gathering so many times ‑‑ the dataset of who is in Geneva on a particular day, doing what, seeing who, in what mood, that dataset may be collected by so many different sources of ‑‑ so many different sensors, apps, that we find ourselves in a world where data is the new air, we're breathing this in and it is actually fairly low barriers of entry to using the data to create value, but it may also be a world that has privacy as well, of course.
Another related piece, market structure. Here is a debate between are we going to see a continued consolidation around a few global technology platforms that are increasingly all covering about the same sort of sphere of activities it as each other, but competing with each other, but due to networks, economies of scale, there are a few dominant large ones or we see the continuous wave of disruption, where the corporations we see now, the global tech platforms, they're broken up, challenged, just despite my space, net space in the way, they're replaced by new incumbents.
I go ‑‑ the Internet, it is one relevant, very relevant here, where critical uncertainty is whether it continues to be this sort of globally integrated or whether we see the emergence of the splinternet, of separate blocks obviously between countries or between geographic regions or groupings of countries potentially. And then the other dimension of this is sort of the walled gardens between corporations, where it could become increasingly difficult or a hassle, there is friction to move between whether you're an Android user, iOS user, you see the division in the Internet between the spheres of different digital, global digital platforms.
The next slide: Obviously, a number of other ones, they're around well‑being, a huge issue, it is inequality both within societies and whether the whole global convergence of Developing Countries will continue given the change in development roots for them and this new Digital Economy, and then the issues of security and privacy where we face continued huddling along cyber risk or is this a minimal part or such a big issue that's so out of control that it is having a major impact on all of the rest of the digital transformation.
And then, of course, the question of the end of privacy, you know, what's happening on privacy? Is it actually going to be increasingly futile to attempt to restrict privacy in the world of such an abundance of data.
Finally, this key question on governance. What are the roles of governments, what they'll take in this new world? We're already seeing some examples of governments that are taking a much more sort of activist role, embracing the digital transformation and taking initiative to actually make themselves take a role. It could be considered governments being the platform in the Digital Economy.
The next one, real quick, just to say that that ‑‑ we group these up to some sort of buckets of scenarios, which lightly correspond to the individuals with the greater control, the government sort of really becoming platforms, one where we see this continuing consolidation for global tech titans, and then the last one, where really the data becomes and the Artificial Intelligence is so accessible, this is a highly decentralized world where there is easy entry for multiple actors. I won't go into details but I will say our next step is working these through, the different Committees and Parts of the OECD, policy areas, we're asking what does it mean and what are the policy implications under the various scenarios and under the various critical uncertainties and the question I would throw out now, in the groups of your areas, what do you see as the key to uncertainties where you admit we don't know and we need to be preparing for not just one future, but a potential of more.
I look forward to the discussion.
>> MOLLY LESHER: Thank you so much, Duncan. That was a great overview of the project.
We're going to move to our panel now. We're going to have some brief interventions from them reacting to the foresight work, but also to the project as a whole, sort of what are the main outputs we should deliver to the project. Once we do that, I hope you'll stay and we will have an interactive discussion.
>> CAROLYN NGUYEN: Thank you very much, Molly, Duncan, for setting the context so well for the Going Digital project and for the organizers for including us within this open forum.
As a member of the private sector and also more generally, business participants at the OECD as a member where we represent business from multiple sectors and of different sizes, we participate broadly across the multiple issues that concern the Digital Economies, taxation, trade, labor issue, many of the critical uncertainties that Duncan has put on the table. Businesses at the forefront of the digital transformation with innovations to enable sustainable growth and development globally and locally, nationally, we absolutely understand the need of the foresights group to establish scenarios that are extreme in each of the dimensions selected to really enable ‑‑ and Duncan used the term provoke ‑‑ people to think out of the box about potential futures. However, our concerns is that the scenarios, especially from business, the global scenario may be taken out of context ever this valuable exercise and be misunderstand resulting in regulatory approaches that would adversely impact businesses and the digital transformation and relative at the IGF itself, the realization of the regional development goals.
The digital future doesn't just happen. We really all need to work together and actively shape it. Government working with business across multiple sectors, and different sizes, the Technical Community, Civil Society, including both consumer and labor groups and other interested parties to reflect our respective needs and challenges inclusively.
We are very glad that the Going Digital finding, the preliminary finding is that realizing the full potential of the Digital Economy will require an integrated, holistic environment. And for us, it means considering the economic, social cultural, technical, government factors, incorporating needs of different stakeholder communities, the ones I mentioned, the evidence‑based, this is something that the OECD is fantastic at and has a great history in doing. And is also focused on enabling sustained investment, the economic concept of the OECD, specifically as it relates to the IGF, investment is not possible without growth and without growth realization of the SDGs would be seriously hampered. It is critical thinking that the resulting policy framework focuses on creating an environment that would enable growth.
Focusing specifically in that context, we believe that stakeholders need to work toward an integrated holistic environment, and we propose an additional scenario be created campaigning elements of each of the existing foresight scenarios identified from workshops and stakeholders, furthermore, the integration would also make explicit the point that Duncan has emphasized which is that the scenarios in reality coexist.
The scenario would firstly serve as a common vision of the opportunity and promise that is presented by the digital transformation for economic and societal benefits that are the Going Digital project but also while identifying challenges that would need to be addressed in order to realize the vision.
Secondly, the scenario, the integrated scenario serves to validate the proposed integrated policy framework for the Going Digital project.
Thirdly, it would serve as a concrete focus point for discussion on balancing the different policy issues and regulatory recommendations that are under discussion. It goes back to some of the points that Molly and Duncan had made on the need to get out of the siloing of issues.
In summary, what we propose, we look at working mechanisms, Duncan looks at it as tools to enable great dialogues, but that the outcome the critical uncertainties and the findings, they can be integrated to serve as a common vision so that all stakeholders can work towards the same goal and create an integrated holistic policy environment that encourages sustained investment which means for both supply and demand side which can enable health in a digital ecosystem delivering on the promise of digital transformation, that integrated scenario would provide the concrete framing of the project. Elements of the integrated vision could include for example how the different stakeholders, instead of shifting all of the work to one, we work together to enable this.
Secondly, to enable and facilitate the digital transformation across borders, are the new considerations in terms of needing to develop and design interoperable policy frameworks, and thirdly, how can existing regulations complement Best Practices and self‑regulation to enable fulfillment of the potential, this is enabling the sectorial cross issues and the scenario would create an opportunity to really discuss that. This then provides a framework for some concrete outputs from the Going Digital project. Including it going right back to really the history of the OECD in terms of firstly sharing of good practices and Policy Options and evidence, of holistic policy objectives showing proven progress in enabling transformation; and secondly, and practically, a digital policy toolkit including things like, for example, who needs to be at the table, should be at the table, policy elements that need to be put in place and examples of effective policy practices, again integrating the different frameworks and issues that are in place.
Thirdly, accurate, inclusive measures of progress in the digital transformation, including implementation of policy recommendations.
I think these are all things that the OECD is already doing and it is fantastic at. I think we repeat to you, confirm to you what you're doing and thinking as really valuable output.
Thank you very much.
>> MOLLY LESHER: This is really helpful.
Thank you.
Johannes Ruhl.
>> JOHANNES RUHL: Thank you for inviting me to give the government perspective on the foresight scenario and policy project.
First, on Duncan's presentation, this is for us as government officials, it is a helpful endeavor because the Swiss government does not do strategic foresight, especially certainly not in the way that you're doing it. This is great value‑added that you provide to us. I think other governments are in the same situation probably.
I'm going ‑‑ not going to put my money on one scenario or the other, but I'm going to highlight just one aspect that ‑‑ insights, various ‑‑ several of the scenarios, that's the perceived gap between technology and the economy and policy on the other hand. Some people have policy 1. 0 and it has come out in Molly's presentation first. From our perspective, that statement is not a very helpful statement because first of all, many regulations are actually technologically neutral and so this gap is maybe not that the big as one would imagine.
At the same time, if there is a gap it could be helpful because there is no ‑‑ it wouldn't be very helpful to innovate regulation ‑‑ to regulate innovation away.
You know, there needs to be a bit of error, the business models can emerge and develop. That is certainly the view as a Swiss government.
You know, the current applications, business models, it comes from the fact that there is this area for companies and actors to develop.
The fact that government is a little bit slow to react to every single development, it may be a boon for society. Of course, there are externals emerging from the digital transformation that maybe the churn of people losing jobs, trying to find new jobs is increasing, getting faster, governments have to invest more in education, reaching workers. You know, there is no disputing this.
As a general approach, we don't think it is necessary to regulate from the beginning. In terms of possibility, I think if there is ‑‑ you could look at where this creeps up. Those are the scenarios we would consider to be pretty relevant, or those elements of the scenario are relevant.
Just another couple of thoughts on the policy project that Molly presented. Again, very helpful endeavor for governments because you force us to think horizontally, transversely, diagonally if you want by having a holistic approach, you're putting people in play with each other that usually don't talk to each other. Governments are a little bit silos as you certainly know. You are helping us to cut across that. I know you have to do it as well because you have to work with so many policy communities in the OECD.
You know, all of our support for that. It is a great asset that you bring, the breadth of experience and the evidence‑based information as you mentioned before.
Keep going.
We want to push you towards coherence, and you should push us towards a coherent integrated policymaking the package that will come out, the integrated policy framework that you mentioned will certainly be a useful tool for all governments to assess themselves against. See where they stand, where the national digital strategies stand, all of the various policies that the government has undertaken vis‑a‑vis the Best Practices that we'll certainly deliver.
Thank you very much.
>> MOLLY LESHER: Thank you for sharing the government perspective.
Can we hear from you, from the Internet Technical Community?
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for presenting this very interesting project and documents which are extremely useful for all of us.
My perspectives in this panel would be as my role as University teacher from Argentina investigating the impact of technology in society and also as a member of the Internet Society Board of Trustees and the member of the Internet Society community because I'm the chapter leader in Argentina.
This will be my perspective from my comments. I would like to after thanking you, thanking other colleagues for sharing their perspectives, I would like to capture a comment made by Duncan about rapid change. Rapid change.
I have been participating in this WSIS and Internet Governance process since the beginning, since the early ‑‑ like 15 years ago. I was thinking about this rapid change concept. I thought we were talking about new things, Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, impacting labor, many things that are already changing very rapidly, but many other things haven't changed at all. We still have areas of the world without connectivity. We have half of the world without Internet. We still have a lack of infrastructure in many areas of the world. We have people with hunger, we have people without water.
What I have seen and investigated in the issues for the last 15, 12 years, it is that, yes, many ‑‑ there is an avenue for rapid change, but there is also a lower avenue that goes slowly. That is a gap that in my modest opinion may be growing with this even rapider ‑‑ I don't know if that word exists ‑‑ more rapid change from now on. This new technologies, they're bringing many, many disruptive changes to the economies. What happens with Developing Countries, are Developing Countries able to capture the changes?
I would like to stress the report made by Internet Society called Path to our Digital Future. It was online, of course, on the Internet Society website, very interesting report made after many, many interviews made to experts all over the world. It was presented in the 25th Anniversary of Internet Society like two months ago. I encourage you if you're interested in the issues, check the report, and some things call my attention in relation to this session.
The digital divide: When I talk about the different speed of involvement of technology in the developed and the developing world, it may be even stronger in the near future and Duncan talked about a scenario and the horizon of 2030, and I cannot even imagine what may happen in 15 years so far, but what I can think about is are Developing Countries able to capture all of the transformation good and incorporate them into their economies? I think for example in Latin America, most of the economy is based on the work and involvement of small and medium enterprises, can a smaller and medium enterprise get the technology in the infrastructure so easily?
Also this new platform we're talking about, they're so good and so transforming, they're mainly based in developed economies. So how can small companies perhaps share their content, share their products and services if they're even far away, not with enough infrastructure to reach or perhaps not have the ability or the knowledge or the elements of technology to be included.
Personal freedoms, big companies and big platforms, being away from developed countries, they're collecting a lot of information. Is that okay for countries far away how they'll capture this and how they'll capture the challenges of this information that's been placed in other countries and used. This challenges are for me how can ‑‑ how can a policymaker capture this changes? I think understanding how Developing Countries are building strategies and they're mainly based on a multistakeholder approach of working together. Not only the government but with private sector and also with associations and unions, universities, that cooperative word is the one leading towards a more strategic view and approach to the many challenges and my fear is that in Developing Countries sometimes the urgencies are others and it is difficult perhaps to look at the broad picture when we have other urgencies to solve because we may have some local problems to solve first.
I would encourage you to check out the report I told you about. For my understanding, we have found that information, one of the interviews, it was me, but many other experts from all over the world, I would stop here and have comments from the audience.
Thank you very much for the invitation.
>> DUNCAN CASS-BEGGS: Thank you.
I wanted to start off the comments on the importance of the multistakeholder approach. From the Civil Society, the council of the OECD working on digitalization, I think that the first thing to do is to recognize the active and continue the support of the OECD, the Secretariat and the Committee on the Digital Economy policy to the participation of Civil Society and NGOs and activists and experts, global wide that the Civil Society, the council is facilitating, facilitating the work of more than 200 NGOs, experts and activists right now. We have been doing so since the '90s decade, before the multistakeholder notion emerges to the policymaking Agenda. I think this is the first thing to note, to recognize the contribution of the OECD. In this sense, it is not a perfect model, of course, it is always ‑‑ it could be a good starting point for other interventional settings and now we're starting to incorporate the multistakeholder thinking.
Now going to substance.
This is a stimulating document, and I need to recognize that. I was really surprised. The more evidence‑based, the quantitative approach, the OECD has been traditionally working and doing so well, this should be also recognized. And now we have this exercise, this imagination, foresight, perspective. This exercise, which I should say that it is really interesting to think about the future and having an organization taking such steps is something which needs to be recognized and I'm happy to engage on this. I'm happy to find things such as the role of automation, specifically AI that is starting to work on by the OECD and privacy, privacy is fundamental here. Without privacy, there is no choice, there is no freedom, there is no democracy, there is no trust. Without trust, our colleague also recognize that there is no way to utilize the benefits. Having this privacy being recognized in the document is very important.
I would really suggest in order to improve the possibility of the scenarios to not frame privacy as a blocker, something that's slowing down innovation and Rules, but as an enabler, an enabler in the same way that breaks in a car enables them to run safely in the infrastructure. This is the same thing for data, for data‑driven innovation, for any data‑based activity, the activity with the privacy, so it is very ‑‑ it is a great thing to find this recognition in the document of the OECD.
Now, going to the plausibility of this scenarios, while the plausibility is always connected to how this scenarios are connected to the material conditions that could make the scenarios possible, so first here, the first thing to note, it is the convenience to first incorporate to the document the existence of privacy preserving technologies. And I'm happy to announce, to inform here, that the U.S. census will be incorporating privacy technologies in the next edition, the 2020 edition, which is really, really important and there is something such as quantum computing which is really disruptive because they'll challenge the capacity of cryptography to protect against privacy and the security, the financial transactions. This has not been reflected in the document, and I think that's quantum computing. It should be added here.
Now, another element that would contribute to increase the plausibility of the document is to ensure the global dimension. I'm not sure if it is fully incorporated here.
80% of the development of the countries have connections, we know that, but Professor Olga, what of the population is not connected? And among those who are less connected, women has 60% less chances to be connected than men. People with some kind of ethnic identification will have a 40% less chances to be connected. Incorporating the global issue, the global dimension, will increase the plausibility of the document.
Finally, the energetic condition. I want to insist on this. We cannot put energy on the variables part of the economic situation here. We cannot do that. And I will give you just a simple example.
The blockchain case, the Bitcoin case, we're always talking about this Bitcoin case, it is 352 terabytes per hour that a Bitcoin is consuming right now. Which equates to the energy consumption of entire countries such as Denmark, Bulgaria, all of the things with Bitcoin. It transforms into this kind of energy consumption, we should take into consideration much of the energy power is produced by coal factories, with a talking about Bitcoin and blockchain technologies and all of the benefits it could bring, we should also think about the carbon footprint of the technologies and we should expand that to the entire digitalization of the intertransformation issue.
Incorporating the energetic condition, the energy to the report, to the scenarios, it is very important here. Otherwise we would be talking about some material things which are really interesting, which are possible, but which are not really connected to, material conditions. When we talk about material conditions, we also talk about rare materials and we think about quantifying what is the impact of the digitalization on the production of violence when we think about mines and wars and this kind of issue. This is political issues we should take into consideration to really understand and think about the future.
On outcomes, first, we need a consistent body of policy regulations, of ‑‑ sorry ‑‑ policy recommendations, coupled to provide us sustainable digitalization, the development. And we need the OECPD to produce what they're best at, the production of measurement framework and statistics on the digitalization to really understand what are the effects of the digitalization.
Finally, I hope that one of the outcomes of the process is the reinforcement of the multistakeholder corporation. The OECD, they have to show the participation of the different stakeholders, business corporations, governments, Technical Community, labor unions, we all can work together in order to really improve the outcomes of the policy discussions. There we have the cryptographic recommendations, privacy guidelines, others, they have been really influential since the 80s because of the multistakeholder approach.
With this, I will finish my intervention. Thank you, OECD.
>> MOLLY LESHER: Thank you so much. Thank you to the panelists.
I know I speak for Duncan when I say we have food for thought as we go forward and refine the scenarios, the integrated policy framework and the other aspects of the policy. We have a couple of minutes to take questions from you to stimulate the interactive debates.
>> AUDIENCE: Hello. I'm Ingrid, a professor and my field is global communications. I have dealt with globalization for some time.
What I see on the IGF Forum is that, yes, we focus on understanding it the national governments, of course, they're key stakeholders with a key role, key stakeholders in the Digital Economy and the global Civil Society. I think we also should look at the transnationallization or globalization of the societies or all societies through digital communication.
I think if we take on that lens, we see also some ambiguities coming up. You're talking about scenarios and silos and so on and the approach is terrific. It may be worth to also look at the ambiguities of globalization and digitalization in the global scale. What we also see is, for example, yes, we talk about the digital divide but if we go to Indonesia, we see ambiguities between the rural and metropolitan areas coming up, the cities like Jakarta, Mexico City, others are becoming digital hubs in the landscape of the rural, totally digital imbalance and I think that has implications on national policies that has maybe implications on economy and issues of OECD that they may need to work with. What I'm saying, the digitalization carries or causes fracturing of the digital societies which I think we have to look at as well. Another big area is public communication, we're talking about fake news and it is a bit of a buzzword, a buzzword now, but what's more important, it is that we need to be aware of how digital communication changes public spheres and deliberation also across societies and these new things are relevant and they're crucial for the well‑being and issues you're talking about in your policies of society. The connected citizen is now situated in Developing Countries and even in failed states, and they deliberate with each other, I think that's an important dimension to maybe look at when you talk about futures of policy frameworks which we tend to always look at from a national perspective. That's what I wanted to raise.
>> MOLLY LESHER: That's great. Thank you very much.
We're looking a bit in the vector work, which I wasn't able to go into, having the fundamental properties of the digital transformation, they're changing across national boundaries and I take the point that we have to better reflect the whole social and societal dimension in the framework.
We'll definitely look to do that in the future.
Are there any other comments or questions from the floor?
>> AUDIENCE: I'm wondering if any of the extreme scenarios focused on gender specifically?
>> DUNCAN CASS-BEGGS: That's a great question.
It relates to some of the other ones, the questions that I had about energy as well which I thoroughly agree about and the digital divide, we started with the key changes and some of the big high-level uncertainties we have seen around that.
We're now the next phase of this, it is to really take this through and interact with a number of other domains, policy domains and gender is a critical one to delve into.
I think ‑‑ and it intersects in part with this question of the digital divide that we mentioned between countries and within different parts of societies as well as rural and urban and the other divides too. The impact this is having, we start with this idea that what if everyone on the planet, every man, women, child, they had access to the device, even beyond that, then there is huge ‑‑ even if we made that assumption, there are huge uncertainties on how much people use these technologies, how they use them, how they're labeled to use them, what level of ‑‑ what's the devil going to be between the base access that everyone in the world has versus those that haven't got access to the very highest, latest versions of the technologies, does that ‑‑ does that help close differences or expand them? I think that's a key uncertainty that we have and it is one that's also ‑‑ that can be influenced by policy.
I'm just ‑‑ just on a similar point, I thoroughly agree with the point that was made about energy use and material consumption more generally and the environment that this is what we're hoping to do, it is in fact taking this first step out and interact it with the other policy areas and identify where the critical uncertainties are there as well. I think there is a really critical uncertainty between energy really between demand and supply which will grow faster and we're seeing huge breakthroughs in the costs of supplying renewable energy but on the other hand we're seeing massive growth and if you add in things like the projected growth in virtual reality consumption, that's the data consumption and the energy consumption associated with that are huge as well. It is ‑‑ they're really, really big questions on that front that we do hope to bring in to the next versions.
>> MOLLY LESHER: I'm conscience we're standing between you and lunch.
I would like to thank our panelists first with the helpful interventions. Thank you very much.
Thank you for coming.
There is a little one‑page flyer you should have received. There is our website on the back. Feel free to check it out and keep apprised of all of the progress.
Have a good lunch.