In an increasingly digital world, the safety and rights of children online have become paramount concerns. This has also been reflected at the IGF, with an increasing number of stakeholders and sessions focused on children. However, with rapid technological development and broader socio-political shifts, the question arises whether traditional approaches are achieving their objectives.

There are also growing concerns about the widening gap between those who benefit from technology and those who don’t. The needs of diverse groups of people are not considered, and licensing and business models exclude a vast network of innovators that can adapt them to benefit disadvantaged and marginalised groups. This adds to the great divide between the need to improve the health and wellness, as well as empowerment, inclusion and other outcomes for women and girls, and systemic barriers that prevent accelerating local FemTech innovation.  

This will be a dynamic two-part session, bringing together a diverse range of perspectives to critically examine (i) multi-sectoral action for child rights and safety; and (ii) preventing digital divides and ensuring a fair distribution of technological benefits. 

Part 1 will include investors, companies that develop or deploy digital technologies, regulators, civil society, and international organizations to examine the unique roles and leverage points of these stakeholders for creating a safer digital environment for children, from early childhood to adolescence.

Part 2 will explore how building open source FemTech products, including FemTech Digital Public Goods, can provide a service layer to national and regional Digital Public Infrastructure that improves outcomes for women and girls. At present, 31% of women worldwide are not in education, employment, or training; 740 million in developing economies remain unbanked; and over 21 million adolescent girls in LMI countries become pregnant each year.  All the while, 75% of fem tech companies are currently based in the US or Europe; in 2023 women-founded startups accounted for 2% or less of VC funding; the funding for innovation for emerging markets has plummeted by over 40% since 2023; and existing solutions are often inaccessible to those most in need due to traditional licensing and business models.

Participants will gain insights into the complexities of digital governance and the collective efforts required to ensure a child-rights respecting and inclusive digital future. This session promises to be a thought-provoking and action-oriented discussion, fostering a deeper understanding of how we can build a safer and more inclusive digital future.

As the Global Digital Compact underscores, there is an urgent imperative for digital cooperation that harnesses the power of AI innovation for the benefit of humanity. Evidence increasingly points to the importance of contextually-grounded AI innovation for a just and sustainable digital transition.

Local AI, at its heart, refers to AI innovation choices that enable public accountability, with particular focus on techno-design that prioritizes 3 dimensions: - inclusivity, indigenity and intentionality.

The dimension of inclusivity is about pathways that build pluralistic knowledge societies, where the public value of data and intelligence dividends is equitably distributed. Inclusivity is about encouraging the development of decentralized digital economies that overturn extractivist and neo-colonial dynamics.

The dimension of indigeneity refers to infrastructural building blocks for accountable, generative and democratic economies – data stewardship and AI models that reflect contextually-grounded innovation norms and ethics. The localisation of global AI foundation models may not be sufficient for a new grammar of robust AI localism.

The dimension of intentionality is the steering provided to direct structural forces to shape AI ecosystems for the common good – including, market regulation and incentive structures, public governance for social value of innovation, etc.

12.00 to 12.05 pm
Framing remarks and introduction to the session:
Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change

12.05 to 12.15 pm
Round 1. Inclusion: What are the pathways to AI innovation that are truly inclusive? How can local communities be real beneficiaries of AI?

● Jackie Si Tou, UN Trade and Development (remote)
● Linet Kwamboka, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

12.15 to 12.25 pm
Round 2. Indigeneity: What radical shifts do we need in AI infrastructures for an economy and society attentive and accountable to the people?

● Amb. Arindam Bagchi, Government of India (TBC)
● Sarah Nicole, Project Liberty Institute

12.25 pm to 12.35 pm
Round 3. Intentionality: How should AI innovation pathways be steered for the common good?

● Amb. Thomas Schneider, Government of Switzerland
● Nandini Chami, IT for Change

12.35 pm to 1.00 pm
Open discussion (moderated by Valeria Betancourt)

The digital divide remains a structural challenge hindering equitable global development, with particularly pronounced impacts on countries in the Global South. Issues such as inadequate infrastructure, unaffordable costs, and insufficient digital skills have constrained these nations’ capacity to effectively participate in the digital economy.
Against this backdrop, aligned with the theme of "Building Digital Governance Together" and guided by the principles of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Digital Compact, this forum hosted by the World Internet Conference (WIC) aims to spotlight the difficulties, challenges, and unmet needs faced by the Global South in bridging the digital divide. It seeks to unite stakeholders in building a more inclusive, human-centric, and sustainable digital future.
The forum will convene representatives from governments, civil society organizations, and research institutions across the Global South to amplify their voices on digital development priorities. By strengthening North-South dialogue and cooperation, it will address systemic inequities in digital access, governance, and innovation.
Through policy debates, exchanges on technology applications, and best practice sharing, participants will explore how to harness opportunities—particularly those arising from AI advancements—to dismantle developmental barriers in the Global South, effectively narrow the digital divide, and foster more balanced global digital progress.
Since establishing as an international organization in 2022, the World Internet Conference has deepened collaboration with all parties including Global South partners to advance internet innovation and improve global governance frameworks. At the 2024 Wuzhen Summit, WIC successfully hosted a ministerial meeting with 15 countries, where digital ministers engaged in in-depth discussions on “Opportunities and Challenges of Bridging the Digital Divide in the AI Era,” yielding substantial consensus. Building on these outcomes, this forum will continue to galvanize international consensus on the digital divide and co-create a blueprint for a community with a shared future in cyberspace.

Agenda

1. Setting the scene (3 minutes) - The moderator will introduce the theme and purpose of the open forum and introduce the speakers. 
2. Remarks & Open discussion (55 minutes) –Speakers will share their views and best practices. 
3. Wrap-up (2 minutes) – The moderator will summarise the main points and wrap up the event.

(1) On-site and online moderators will closely collaborate to energize discussions. The online moderator will promptly collect and relay questions to the on-site moderator, ensuring seamless communication between both groups.
(2) Multiple staff and volunteers will be on-site for live-streaming speakers' presentations via Zoom. 
(3) The organizer will create promotional materials, including graphic and textual links and posters, and disseminate them through social media platforms 

Key Takeaways
    1.    The forum addressed the growing risk of digital inequality, particularly in developing countries, as emerging technologies like artificial intelligence advance rapidly.
    2.    High deployment costs and limited digital skills are preventing many communities, especially in the Global South, from fully benefiting from digital progress.
    3.    Participants emphasized the urgent need for capacity building, innovative digital governance, and deeper international cooperation to create a digital future that is inclusive, fair, and accessible to all.

Call-to-Action Points

    1.    Prioritize investment in digital capacity building, especially in underserved and developing regions, to ensure equitable access to emerging technologies.
    2.    Promote the development of inclusive and innovative digital governance models that address the structural barriers contributing to digital inequality.
    3.    Strengthen multilateral and multi-stakeholder cooperation to ensure that the benefits of digital transformation are shared broadly and no one is left behind.

Media Link here: WIC hosts open forum on bridging digital divide during 2025 IGF

This session intends to highlight the relationship between Universal access (UA)and digital literacy(DL), with DL being a prerequisite for achieving UA. Considering this critical role, the need for effective DL program becomes imperative; without which the economic and digital transformation benefits would elude countries. With this in mind, we xray the formulation of frameworks, policy, implementation, awareness and coordination of uncommon and innovative ways of achieving DL for an audacious target in a vastly populated, yet lowly rated country in literacy. This system achieved excellent traction using effective collaborations with industry, civil society, volunteers, thus avoided excessive expenditure for the DL, which is a critical challenge. The session would engage active participants to share experience, challenges and applied solutions, to benefit countries and participants who wish to achieve success in this critical component of universal access. The details of the program in terms of metrics, planning, policy, framework, resources, mobilization, monitoring and evaluation of the program, and peculiar solutions and those that can apply globally would be discussed.

Since DL is a universal challenge that needs innovative solutions as Nigeria has implemented, we shall employ an outreach program that would inform, attract the IGF community to partake of this session. Interaction would be facilitated through the carefully allotted time slices for either channels of participation. The moderator(s) would apply their collective vast previous experience in handling the transitions from speakers to audience and the Q&A sessions. The program is targetted at countries who may be having difficulty in crafting an effective DL program thus interactions highlighting challenges and proffered solutions applicable to global audience would be explored and made available to attendees. There's also a plan to facilitate further hand-holding opportunities and clarifications.

The Session will focus on highlighting the important link between IP, alternative dispute resolutions and esports. It will also provide an opportunity to discuss with all the stakeholders the upcoming WIPO guide on esports and the International Games and Esports Tribunal, which was introduced this year. The discussions would cover such topics as:

- The Importance of IP in esports; Explore how intellectual property drives value in the esports ecosystem, from game development to branding, sponsorships, and content creation.

- Managing IP in esports; Discuss key strategies for safeguarding game assets, team logos, streaming content, and digital innovations through trademarks, copyrights, and contracts.

- Preparing for and Resolving Disputes;Understand common IP-related conflicts in esports, such as unauthorized use of content, contract breaches, and intellectual property disputes, and how to proactively address them through mediation and arbitration.

- Best Practices in Contracts and Transactions; Learn how well-structured agreements between players, teams, sponsors, and publishers can prevent disputes and protect rights.

The program will have a modern format, which was successfully used in previous WIPO organized sessions. The onsite and online moderators will be ensuring lively discussions and interactions. Participants onsite, as well as online, will be invited to ask questions throughout the event.