Building the Data Economies of the Future
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Building the Data Economies of the Future Tomorrow’s Data Economies Shaped by the Youth of Today in partnership with Answering Tomorrow’s Questions Today The World Government Summit is a global platform dedicated to shaping the future of governments worldwide. Each year, the Summit sets the agenda for the next generation of governments with a focus on how they can harness innovation and technology to solve universal challenges facing humanity. The World Government Summit is a knowledge exchange center at the intersection of government, futurism, technology, and innovation. It functions as a thought leadership platform and networking hub for policymakers, experts and pioneers in human development. The Summit is a gateway to the future as it functions as the stage for analysis of future trends, concerns, and opportunities facing humanity. It is also an arena to showcase innovations, best practice, and smart solutions to inspire creativity to tackle these future challenges. 16 World Government Summit 17 Table of Content Topics Foreword by Lord Tim Clement-Jones 02 Executive Summary 05 The Challenge of Data Economies: Why 08 Governments are Falling Behind Data economies: winners and losers 09 Too little, too slowly: the response of 09 governments to the data challenge Why Youth Must be Involved 12 Six Imperatives to Make Youth the 15 Drivers of Data Economies Disrupt the education system 15 Support and empower young people 18 to engage with governments Rehabilitate governments and public 19 servants to become digitally fit Set and monitor youth and data 20 economy national indicators Capitilise and use data 23 Create an AI market and jobs 24 Conclusion: Building Youth-centric Data 26 Economies in an Age of Disruption Table of Content Foreword by Lord Tim Clement-Jones, Former Chair, House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence Regardless of the pace of its development, Artificial an increasingly complex and dynamic digital world. intelligence (AI), is set to shape and disrupt the Crucially, it must enable students to inform, in a future at an unprecedented scale. In fact, the next meaningful way, the debate around how advancements generation is coming of age in an environment where such as AI must, and should not, be used. AI is embedded more and more in their daily lives. Governments should collaborate with young people The impact of AI for their futures is going to be in driving further digital understanding especially in revolutionary. Governments and organisations must terms of developing tools to mitigate harms such as empower these younger generations to play a key role fake news and misuse of microtargeting. Furthermore, in how this technology is used and how it develops, to policymakers must work with youth to develop ethical ensure those that will be impacted most have a voice and responsible technology frameworks. in shaping the direction that our world is heading in. Finally, governments should improve the management We also need to provide more support for younger and protection of personal data, in particular for young generations to acquire a diverse skillset for an people. Data trusts are a good way of stewarding youth uncertain and complex future ahead. The Royal Society data in terms of protection and control, while using it in the UK makes a strong case for the cross disciplinary for data driven policy making and building trust among skills young people will need, and to this we should young people. Using the same approach as for GDP also add cross cultural competency, novel and adaptive growth rates and employment statistics, governments thinking and social intelligence. Governments should need to develop specific indicators to measure the seek to design new active programmes to develop degree to which young people are engaged in building these skills so that young people will have better the data economies of the future. information from the very start of their working lives about the growth prospects for different sectors and Young people should be playing an important part the corresponding range of opportunities within them. in building our increasingly data-driven economies, where the benefits brought by advancements such The education system should reflect the apparent and as AI are inclusive and shared openly with everyone, emerging needs of the future – we must transform the not just a select group of countries or individuals. For current system to address these and experiment with this we truly need to democratise artificial intelligence alternatives so that both can provide in combination and make it equally accessible around the world. a more personalised and diversified approach at each Only this way can we ensure our future generations level, whether academic or vocational. Education in are empowered to reap its full benefits, and remain data driven economies should also improve digital protected from its potential hazards. understanding, enabling young people to navigate 2 Without a determined and innovative approach by policymakers, the benefits of our new data economies will not be shared equally. 17 World Government Summit 16 World Government Summit Executive Summary The world is awash with data. In the past quarter By youth, we mean the digitally-savvy generations who of a century, smartphones, Wi-Fi, robotics, artificial have grown up with the internet. These digital natives intelligence (AI) and a host of other technological are at ease with the lightning speed at which new marvels have swept the globe, transforming all technologies transform our lives, where the stuff of societies. Small business loans are booming in sub- yesterday’s science-fiction fantasy – such as driverless Saharan Africa via consumer banking apps; driverless cars – is out on the highway tomorrow. cars are now being road-tested; robots can analyse clinical data in real time and guide surgeons during Historically, governments have not been well suited to operations. embrace – or anticipate – rapid technological change. Nor, for that matter, have governments turned to young It is a world of data abundance and immense promise, people for insights or advice. Yet tech companies, from yet it is also one of potentially vast inequalities. start-ups to the giants of Silicon Valley, have taken a Without a determined and innovative approach by diametrically opposite approach. Apple was founded in policymakers, the benefits of our new data economies 1976 by two college dropouts; Larry Page and Sergey will not be shared equally. Already, there is an Brin were 24 when they founded Google; Facebook’s asymmetry in the power of a few global tech giants to roots go back to two Harvard room-mates fooling harvest and mine data. These companies leverage their about on the internet. Crucially, those founders have immense capital resources, highly skilled workforce continued to promote youth: Apple’s median employee and unrivalled access to information to exploit new age is only 31 today, as it is at Amazon, founded by Jeff business opportunities and crush competition. Bezos in 1994 at the age of 30. As a result, regulators and policymakers (not to It is clear that giving young people a voice in how mention tax and customs authorities) face a dilemma: governments should respond to disruptive technologies how to promote equality of opportunity in a data- is not the entire story. driven world dominated by a handful of companies; one in which data flows seamlessly across national Governments that ignore the insights of borders, new technologies are disrupting established their digital natives risk falling further industries and the ownership of data remains ill- behind in a race they cannot afford to defined. The challenge is to reconcile two opposing lose. forces: ever-increasing data flow and scarcity of access to its economic potential. Mutual engagement between government and youth will bring mutual benefits. On the one side, young Every government can and should be people will be enabled to shape the digitised future promoting the promise of data-driven they are to inherit; on the other, governments and older economies.Involving young people public servants will learn new skills and acquire fresh should lie at the heart of a nation’s insights from new generations. response. 175 Governments that are embracing rather than excluding youth – from Estonia, a country of 1.3mn people, to China, with a population of 1.3bn – have already produced some ground- breaking initiatives. Other governments can follow the same route if they are willing to discard the bureaucratic, hierarchical policy- making of the pre-internet era in favour of an innovative, youth-driven ethos that is far closer to the corporate cultures of private tech companies. The ultimate goal is a more level digital playing field, where no child or young person is denied the opportunity to benefit from a data-rich world. To achieve this goal, governments will need to address the following urgent policy recommendations: 1. Disrupt the education system 2. Support and empower young people to engage with governments 3. Rehabilitate governments and public servants to become digitally fit 4. Set and monitor youth and data economy national indicators 5. Capitalise and use data 6. Create an AI market and jobs Given the pace of digital change, time is short. But examples of best practice are proliferating as more governments harness the power of youth to capture the fruits of the data revolution. 6 The Challenge of Data Economies: Why Governments are Falling Behind Around the world, a surge of data is disrupting years later for $1bn in cash and stock. Facebook industries, eroding national trade barriers and followed up in 2014 by purchasing WhatsApp, creating a digitised landscape of immense economic founded in 2009, for approximately $19.3bn. potential. This dramatic increase in data flow has in Control of innovation delivers immense network turn increased the power of the algorithms behind benefits to the dominant players.