Session
Digital Divides & Inclusion
Affordable Access
Digital, Media, and Information Literacy
Gender Digital Divide
Skills Building for Basic and Advanced Technologies (Meaningful Access)
Organizer 1: RENATA SANTOYO, 🔒Anatel
Organizer 2: Luciano Charlita de Freitas, ANATEL
Organizer 3: Ronaldo Neves de Moura Filho, National Telecommunication Agency (Anatel)
Speaker 1: Carlos Baigorri, Government, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 2: Nathalia Foditsch, Private Sector, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 3: Comini Niccolo, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 4: Alexandre Barbosa, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 5: Sonia Jorge, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Nathalia Lobo, Government, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Luciano Charlita de Freitas, Government, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
RENATA SANTOYO, Government, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Panel - 90 Min
A. What are the potential impacts of digital transformation in the Amazon region?
B. How stakeholders from civil society, government, and the private sector can work together to propose creative solutions that balance the expected progress of connectivity and the local communities' knowledge and experience?
C. How to cope with the lack of basic infrastructure while bringing meaningful connectivity to the Amazon region?
What will participants gain from attending this session? Participants of this session will be exposed to a holistic debate about the environment, society, and technology applied to the Amazon Region. It is expected to be a collaborative debate where people from different backgrounds will be able to discuss solutions and synergies and propose actions towards the building of a sustainable meaningful connectivity to a region that embodies some of the most world-valuable natural assets and the costliest challenging connectivity costs. It deals with improving digital and inclusive access, reducing digital gaps, and enhancing population life. It covers themes such as education, economics, social, and the environment.
So, the participants will have the opportunity to reflect on all these things together and how we propose creative solutions to purposeful connectivity that allows the local population to express their citizenship in the digital world.
Description:
This panel of multi-national and gender-balanced professionals attempts to discuss the current and prospective stage of meaningful connectivity in the Amazon region. “Meaningful connectivity” refers to a broader connectivity concept that allows users to have a safe, satisfying, enriching, and productive online experience at an affordable cost. Thus, its scope goes beyond traditional universal connectivity to embrace sustainable development goals.
It approaches infrastructure challenges, local communities' needs, and the environmental protection agenda. By doing so it is expected to disclose a debate on issues that have been overlooked and only partially covered by traditional digital policies towards the region.
By setting the Amazon as a target region the panel will discuss the digital agenda applied to a region that holds some of the most world-valuable natural assets and one of the most menaced ecosystems in South America. This region is also the one that imposes the highest connectivity challenges, the one with the highest average price per Mbps, and the lowest digital standards literacy in Brazil.
This panel also deals with the challenges and potentials of connecting an environmentally and socially sensible region while assuring a full observance of the ESG agenda with the common purpose of bringing sustainable prosperity to its population.
The debate will begin with the presentation of updated evidence on the coverage of fixed and mobile broadband services, and the connectivity of educational, health, and environmental surveillance establishments. Then we will present how this connectivity is serving to enable local communities, in the generation of employment and income and in diversifying the economic matrix of the region.
We believe that presenting this panel as a workshop in the IGF program will allow us to engage civil society, policymakers, regulators, academics, and technicians to discuss solutions to reach the participatory meaningful connectivity of Amazon.
The expected outcomes cover a portfolio of ideas, initiatives, and challenges that might serve as input for the designing of meaningful connectivity policies to the Amazon region and its integration with sustainable development goals. These contributions also deal with improving current initiatives taken by the Brazilian Government on issues such as education, digital infrastructure deployment, and environment protection in the Amazon. It will also allow the developing of a network of international experts from different backgrounds that might be able to coordinate joint studies and advance in the debate of meaningful connectivity in socially and environmentally sensible regions. Finally, the reports from the session will subsidize contributions to local authorities in Brazil, including those in charge of organizing the Brazilian application to hold the COP 30 in the State of Pará, in 2025.
Hybrid Format: The team organizers have extensive experience in managing hybrid with international audiences and in engaging participants from different backgrounds to work together and find common ground on complex issues. Besides that, an hybrid session as proposed will allow to join together onsite and online experts to discuss a topic of world-scale importance.