Inclusive Knowledge Societies: Reality, vision and how to get there… (UNESCO)

Thursday, 12 June 2014, 16h30 – 18h00 http://www.itu.int/wsis/implementation/2014/forum/agenda/#?se=227

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>> MODERATOR: Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to start the panel and welcome to the last high level dialogue on the inclusive knowledge society, reality, vision and how to get there. So welcome to the panel. And this is the moment when I am handing over the Chairmanship to our colleague from UNESCO and Director Indrajit Banerjee. Thank you very much. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Welcome everyone. Not quite immediately to Indrajit Banerjee but to his colleague Andrew Taussig. I am

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involved in the citizen group and various institutes like Chatham House. None of that matters. What is much more important is here we are at this very important stage as the twin tracks for the WSIS review process and the move towards the Millennium Development Goals. And I always think of the WSIS process, the development of knowledge society as a shot of digital adrenalin in the arm. So this is a very critical stage. And if I may just quote, something which was said by a very distinguished servant of the United Nations and a great scholar, Richard Hoggart who was an assistant general of UNESCO and he talked about the urge to communicate which is what we are doing now and what it is all about. He says "I called a-fellow feeling towards others which is intrinsically different from one which is only to use or manipulate them." Human beings are the only people, animals who adapt themselves to the environment. Only we humans can change the environment and this is our big challenge. And the other point that I would like to make which comes out of a report commissioned by Dr. Indrajit Banerjee from two distinguished academics, Professor Robert Lasel and Professor Trambury of the University of Quebec of Montreal in Canada which is a view of how we are getting on with the view towards knowledge societies. And they make a number of key points which is essentially humanistic. We cannot look for the technological miracle and he called it looking for the Resolution. And I can really commend it to you an excellent report commissioned by excellent people, but it raises a number of detailed issues which I am sure our distinguished panel will address. And we have Minister Salma Abbasi, one of the big fingers of the WSIS process and Grace involved with the Civil Society and Salma, a consultant and John Davies a senior figure from the corporate company, Intel, one of the most important companies. With that exciting cast list in mind and I turn to my colleague, Dr. Indrajit Banerjee who has

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really three stakes in this. He is a triple stakeholder. First as himself, an academic who has written books on ICT and second as someone who is a Secretary-General, activist in terms of Civil Society and thirdly as a member of UNESCO. Over who you. >> INDRAJIT BANERJEE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dear colleagues, fellow panelists, I will be brief because this is a UNESCO session and we want to hear other people speak and have an interactive session. I thought it was important before the start of the session to give you some context and let me start by saying that UNESCO as you may know was a key organizer of the WSIS gatherings in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005. As the key UN agency in the field of communication science UNESCO has provided significant intellectual input and expertise not only in Geneva and Tunis preparation stages but throughout the processes leading to the first WSIS+10 event last year organized by UNESCO and partners in Paris and now the secretary review event here organized by ITU and its partners. Significant contribution was the proposal of knowledge societies concept in 2005. At the core of this concept lives the belief that while universal access to information is a basic requirement to create knowledge societies it is not a sufficient requirement. This is because knowledge applies meaning, appropriation and participation. Access to knowledge implies much more than access to ICTs or digital information. It involves learning, informal and formal education settings and is partly acquired through experience. Knowledge is a means to achieve social and economic goals and essential to culture, socialization and integration within markets. Knowledge is also the path to individual and collective emancipation and should be valued for itself. Widespread research and consultations organized with the experts around the world made UNESCO adopt knowledge society's concept and framework consisting of four main pillars. First,

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quality education for all. Second, universal access to information and knowledge. Third, Freedom of Expression. And last but not least respect for linguistic and cultural diversity. Last year on the occasion of the WSIS+10 review event we commissioned a report by two leading scholars. The idea was to take stock of developments on the ground major issues and challenges and propose a strategy to take knowledge societies agenda forward. This high quality report entitled Renewing the Knowledge Society for Peace and Sustainable Development, Providing an In-depth Analysis and Pathway and presents nine guidelines for strategy towards knowledge societies. Let me quickly to set the stage for this session and read through the nine guidelines very quickly. First giving priority to learning processes and the organization of network learning in the light of UNESCO's mission. Second, strong emphasis should be given to the training of trainers, combining effectively all the resources available from face-to-face interaction to digital networking. Third, facilitating rapid circulation of scientific knowledge in all parts of the world, especially in less developed areas. Fourth, encouraging research and debate to protect Intellectual Property and to favor access for all. Fifth, fostering balanced partnerships among the private sector and public sector and Civil Society Organizations as well as among individuals in other groups should be given a priority. Sixth, stimulating participatory initiatives, valuing diversity and giving individuals and local communities visibility and voice. Seventh, responsiveness to the interest of women, People with Disabilities, native peoples and marginalized peoples and groups. Eight, UNESCO should take its leading role in all the areas covered by its mandate encouraging collaborations among those in and outside the UN system with the resources to host information portals to foster

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measures to support open data initiatives and make information more accessible. And last but not least fostering environments and knowledge societies that employ fair employment practice and respect the Human Rights of voluntary contributors and paid workers for diversifying and improving livelihoods. You can see there are quite a wholistic list of guidelines covering those areas that we feel are the most important and the most critical. And with that I think we have the stage for listening to other people's views from various stakeholder groups. And I would pass it back to you, Mr. Chairman. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much indeed. Those challenges are really exciting and will be picked up by our first panel of speakers who come from a range of perspectives, but I would like to think of standard setting. These are such exciting things and they require the participation of all of us as stakeholders, not just people sitting on a panel. The panel is just a piece of wooden furniture. This is a great human enterprise we are involved with. But to begin what we will do is our first speaker, very lucky to have the Minister of ICT from the Minister of ICT and Youth Rwanda, the Honorable Jean Philbert Nsengimana. He has a lot of experience working in this development field. He built and led teams that won the technology and Government award in 2007 for the best e-Health mobile based market solution. And he has directed and organized projects across a range of different fields prior to joining Boxsev, a U.S. company he was the regional coordinator for Africa. Having done a lot in the field it is a privilege. We look forward to what you have to say. >> JEAN PHILBERT NSENGIMANA: Thank you so much, Andrew. Let me comment on something you just said about the urge for human beings to communicate. It is so important that people tend not to

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believe something that has been proven by research, that Africans living on less than $2 a day, they spend more on air time than on food. Can you believe that? That has been proven. So I think trying really to understand the process by which knowledge is created and communicated and how it can be enhanced to change people's lives for the better is something that I'd like to commend UNESCO for leading. I am not an authority on this matter but I can only share the limited amount of experience that Rwanda has had over the last 20 years. Emerging from a genocide and having everything as a priority from health care to infrastructure to legal systems and building institutions and, you know, providing security and most importantly putting food on the table. Rwanda decided to embark on this vision to transform the society from an agriculture based economy to a knowledge based economy. That was back in 2000. And you might thank -- for those that don't know Rwanda, somewhere in the middle of Africa, some place where you dig gold and dig all natural resource. Rwanda is quite an exception. We don't have natural resources. We decided to focus on the human being. That's why education becomes very, very important. So there seems to be when I listened to all the panels that have, you know, come -- succeeded on this table, it seems to be some kind of progression. When we talk about ICT for development, the first thing that everyone talks about is access, infrastructure, Internet, broadband. Until access is available, people don't think about what you -- so we tend to think in theory. Not in parallel. So once access is there or seems to be in place then people think about capacity. Oh, gosh I have got this thing. What do I do with it. We have got this 70%. This 4 billion, you know, mobile devices, this 1 billion mobile devices in Africa. We have to teach people how to use them. So then people start thinking

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about usage and skills. After that they think about applications, content. Now we need to come about and talk about content. What is relevant for me. What does it -- how can I use this to conduct my daily business, whether you are in education, whether you are in agriculture, you are in government, you are in business and trade. You start realizing that okay, I can actually apply this new technology to my very specific domain of business. Then after that you realize that someone needs to keep investing in this. So there has to be an overall investment, a regulation, policy, and climate of doing business. So the four pillars that Indrajit Banerjee talked about there are those four pillars. Some of them are repetitive, access and affordability which goes with it and then ability and application and environment. So if you put all those things together then we can talk about renewing, you know, the knowledge authorities' vision which is a topic we are discussing this afternoon. So Rwanda moved along but unlike the very sequential kind of progression I just talked about we tended to think in parallel. Your country can't afford to waste time. So you have to think in parallel and I think it is something that many other actors ought to really think about. As you build infrastructure you have to also be building human capacity and then you need to be creating applications and solving real people's problems. And then you got to be putting in place an environment that allow investments and allow the growth of the sector. So that's what I wanted to share. But for that to happen, there has to be a sense of urgency in what you do. We don't come here to just talk. We need to be talking about also going and delivering on the promises of this knowledge society because they are huge. They are great. Every minute we lose it is going to not come back. So I think that commitment to delivery is very important. Thank you so much.

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(Applause.) >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much, Minister. That was excellent. And a very commanding appeal to action and the question of parallel lines of thought is something that I think is very important, parallel lines of thought and action and I am sure for the engine room team of UNESCO moving forward this will be something that they will consider. So thank you very much indeed. We come now to our next speaker who I think is one of the big guys of the WSIS movement, Adama Samassekou. I was told when I first attended WSIS in 2003 he was one of the big guys. Now having been director of foreign languages in the world service I see that he is the current President of the African current languages. Therefore I am more impressed about his importance and I look forward to what you have to say. You are the President of PrepCom of Geneva phase of the World Summit on Information Society. And previously you were the Mali and former spokesman of Mali. You are versed in education and information. And we look forward to what you have to say, sir. >> ADAMA SAMASSEKOU: Thank you, sir. I am going to speak in French. For linguistic diversity it seems that everyone is speaking English except me. If I could speak in mundane but no one would understand me. So I will speak in French. Thank you, sir. I just want to correct one thing, I am no longer Chair of the African Academy of Languages. I am pleased to be here on the panel and I was wondering if my presence here might avoid bureaucratic languages because I am used to speaking my mind. I would like to thank UNESCO for coming up with this panel, but I'd like to talk about the concept itself. When UNESCO kicked off this concept, a knowledge society, I say that's a good idea. But I think that we need to make some corrections and we need to change the name. Because we are in a knowledge society since man has

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begun to think and produce things, produce language. >> Mic the speaker, please. >> ADAMA SAMASSEKOU: Now the added value that ICTs bring today is the fact that today we can share things almost instantaneously. So today we are in a society of knowledge and a society of sharing knowledge. So this aspect of sharing is very important. So that's my first comment. But to share knowledge we need to do something else. We have to allow each and every actor to be a stakeholder in the sharing process. So for me the first most important dimension of what we are trying to build now for several years is to try to ensure that the greatest majority of the people of the world can take part in this process of producing knowledge, of sharing knowledge, of creating conditions for sharing knowledge. So this raises a fundamental issue that is managing or governing a tool which allows sharing information. I am referring to the Internet right now. Only very few people have a handle on the Internet. If we look at Africa and we look at the indigenous languages well, these languages don't have the status of working languages. Often in school, in countries we are forced to use a language which we inherited from the colonial period and this is a problem. Because we realize that there is a basis for anyone's identity is a language. A language is a matrix for creation and understanding. But if I'm a little kid and I really don't speak that language, I only speak a language at home and if I have to go to school I have to shift. I have to think in a new language, a language I am not used to thinking in. I've been through this and I got through it. Unfortunate a lot of people have not been able to go through. How many geniuses have died without making this shift? I am asking UNESCO to think about this. When we talk about quality

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education, the first thing is to have education in one's mother tongue. In every country where there is a school people learn in their mother tongue. So it seems to me that this essential is crucial. This is crucial for education and also crucial for access to information. Access is not just infrastructure. It is also related to the language one uses. This is a fundamental question. And I think that this has been raised since the preparatory process. And we are raising it again today but now I am saying it is high time to do something. We've talked a lot. Now we have to act. And here and now I say that building knowledge, sharing knowledge if it is going to be generalized, if production, if creativity are going to be shared by the greatest number, if we make this a democratic process then we have to take these aspects in to account. This is why I have the habit of linking the digital divide and linguistic divide. If we look at things from this point of view, if we look at the WSIS+10 roadmap, this roadmap should allow us to negotiate with all actors, Governments, if they want universal access and this is one of the four things that UNESCO wants. We have to ensure that access to data as data and content is provided in national languages. If we want access to teaching, we have to have teaching in mother tongue. People should have the possibility of using their mother tongue. And 80, 90% of the populations are marginalized because they do not have sufficient knowledge of the working languages in their country. So even these four things that UNESCO is trying to promote demonstrates the importance of this linguistic aspect that I mentioned and that's why I am putting the accent on this. We should tell our Governments to work in that direction. We should ask UNESCO to play the role of a promoter in this area. We need to tell everyone if you are not going to use -- UNESCO should

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say if you are not going to use mother tongue in schools, then you can't have high quality education. I think this is an ethical issue as well. It is not ethical to continue to finance or put money in to education if children cannot really understand what's going on. It is a bit of a waste of time to invest money in a school system where children can't understand because they can't work in their mother tongues. I think that the education system has to be modified, reformed. That children should be able at least to start their education in their mother tongue. Now I have spoken to one or two dimensions, the access and the linguistic aspect and a third dimension is that we cannot create a knowledge society if we don't take the necessary decisions to accelerate things. And here I would like to pay tribute to UNESCO. Today we are submerged by information. This is why even the terms society of information is ambiguous. I don't want to table it just to be able to have information. I also want to be able to process information and be able to sort through this information. Youth today which is our addicts who want new technologies really have to understand it is not everything on Internet that you need. You have got to teach them how to sort through all this data, discover what they really need. And the way to achieve this is via Telecenters. And I really encourage Governments to develop these e-libraries so that people can appropriate knowledge via the Internet. This is the only way people will be able to become stakeholders in this process of building and sharing information. So that's pretty much in a nutshell a five-minute overview in order to launch the debate. I think it is time to maybe stop talking and think about the 90, 95% people who don't have access to information. Why? Because they are not part of this informational trade. They are

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marginalized. I've just had an interview with the press in New York and I said -- well, they asked me what's going to happen after this meeting. I said that's a good question. We have to go out in the field and the Ministers have to tell their Presidents it is high time to state concrete decisions and get down to brass tax. The Secretary-General has said this, at the UN this and that and now it is high time to stop talking and say we have a roadmap and now we have to do something. The MDG agenda has to be in line with the ICTs. So we don't all just talk about technologies per se but we talk about Information Society. ICTs in themselves are use -- the way people use them are important. Thank you. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. (Applause.) >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: So two challenges for UNESCO and all of us. One, the integration of the education system in to the mother tongues of people, rather than pretending people speak French or English better than they really do. And secondly, the question in the BBC is you can throw information at people but they pay their license fee to have a reference point. Someone to act as a judgment. What's a reference point in French? (Speaking in non-English language). So this is absolutely crucial. Before we move on to John, political speakers former Ministers, anyone been excited, outraged, something you would like to say before we move on to John? John has some important things to say from a senior corporate perspective. There is a big gap between us and you. Anyone want to raise any points? Don't have to but there may be someone who wants to say something. No? Okay. Then we move on and we now come to John Davies who will give us a different point of view. John is the Intel vice-president of the Intel World Ahead Program. It is a programme which -- he will tell

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us more about it. But during his 34 years with Intel John Davies has worked with senior engineering, markets sales and management positions. So he has a broad view. He was also general manager of the Intel Asia-Pacific region, Hong Kong and he was awarded for establishing the Intel automotive market and won the Latin trades technology leader of the year. So he is a sharp guy. He would like to so far as possible respond to the challenges being thrown out by what Dr. Indrajit Banerjee said. >> JOHN DAVIES: Thank you very much. I actually got the report in front of me here and I need to take these off. I have got the report in front of me here. And there is two areas here I can dive down a bit deeper and talk about some of the actions on the ground. And the second recommendation in the UNESCO report, the second point Dr. Indrajit Banerjee brought up was about training the trainers. And this is an area that the industry has a lot of capabilities in these. I will pick a couple of examples. In education, the biggest issue usually isn't computer device. You get down to the content and training and I have seen many of these fall down in implementation is the teacher's side of this. Teacher training. You will find that the children know how to use computers, and teachers don't feel as fluent in using them, particularly the ones that have been teaching for a lot of years and didn't grow up with computers and they push back. I don't want to feel foolish in front of someone who knows how to use this better than me. You train teachers to do this. Microsoft has partners in learning and local companies have a number of these but the scale of those is Intel teach where we are counting the teachers years ago and it went passed 12 million teachers. Two master trainers for each region of the country. Maybe 2 or 300. Smaller country maybe 50 trainers and they live all over the country and they spend a week with learning how to use

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a lesson plan and they learn to use the computer. Their job is to train the teachers. You cascade that, and if the country is big enough you have grand master trainers that main master trainers that train trainers and train teachers. That's a process that has worked well. And it probably trains about one and a half, two million teachers a year which is nowhere near enough but the capacity there between local language, it is free to the country and the country can then sell for normal teachers. There is one process we are doing this. Now the more grass roots level India declared a programme that said I have lots of Government services. I have a hundred days work. I need national identity and I have lots of programmes we are bringing to the people and will be in the villages and cities and to all citizens. And in order to access these programmes a lot of these are online and many people couldn't access the programmes about work and national identity and health care because no one in the family was digitally literate. So they bring up the one digital literate person per family programme. From an industry point of view maybe we can sell a computer in there or get some access and we get excited about. And what you realize you have to train with and that person has to be trained so they can train the family or the person that does all this for the parents and grandparents. So you are training that trainer. In those digital literate programme, PC basics, essentials and the industry can put these in programmes and very often if this is one of the University students or the school children areas they will self-train. In other cases you have to run the training programmes locally. In the rural areas these Telecenters, the ladies in the Telecenters often do the training for the 6 or 7 million that need it. You are training at the micro level. Another example is Vietnam. They declared a few years ago we

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are the only country that speaks Vietnamese. Learning English is critical. The British Council went in there and did a match of the school curricula from Vietnamese to English. As we were doing a programme to reach more Vietnamese we seen something that is interesting to them and the British Council was looking for a way of reaching people. We were looking for a way to make the offering for exciting and more value to them. So we bundled a -- the British Council learned English on the computers being sold in Vietnam, all of them. And then when you go to the stores and the telecoms and look at these and you find the British Council and are trained to be the trainer and you will go upstairs and see ten computers and 50 people crowded around these and reciting English and learning it and learning how to learn it from the computer that they may be interested in purchasing later. Those are the train the trainer type programmes. The other one is the public/private partnership. And I said this morning and in another panel look at a big programme like education its Government. It is NGOs. It is banks. It is different areas of Government, Ministers of education, Ministers of finance, of Ministers of IT and private industry cooperating together. Massive ones of these work beautifully, but if it is not a PPP it is a much, much smaller much less effective programme. It is the combination of that Government direction, that ministry direction, the NGO, the telecoms method engaged in this, the private industry. I see areas massively engaged in this. And that PPP is another area that makes these work. And we have programmes here with education aimed at young children, aimed at every teacher getting a computer and every University student. And I will be perfectly frank on these that the ones that tend to be work Government only programme and we will show the industry later or it is an industry only programme. And we will try to sell them and we

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don't have the support of the Government. There is a lot of work that goes in to them and there is not a lot of interest. The 5X amplification comes in and it reaches far, far more people with leadership support from Government and with big contribution support from industry and all key players engaged in a programme and lots of tiny -- absolutely critical. Thanks. (Applause.) >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much, John. That was very clear and specific. I'd like to let one question hang in the air. When I ask Dr. Indrajit Banerjee something about how he judges a programme to be effective, he has to speak for 190 countries. When I ask you, I speak for a company. Will Intel continue with this programme? I'd like to have this hang in the air. When we ask questions about whether a programme is sustainable in the long term, whether it will get a second chance. You don't have to answer the question but it is something -- >> JOHN DAVIES: I will answer it. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: That's something that we will come to later. Grace, I would like to come to you next. Grace Githaiga comes from Nairobi and her voice and words are often seen in the media, right, speaking, attesting, approving occasionally. We look forward to hearing from you. You are associate of Kenya ICT Action Network. And you are also affiliated with the media empowerment democracy East Africa research programme. Having looked at what Grace has done on the Web a lot you are very busy. So you have the floor and we look forward to hearing from you, Grace. >> GRACE GITHAIGA: I am just laughing at the fact that you are saying that -- the noise element and demonstrative element because we know that is usually associated with Civil Society, but I need to say that Civil Society is a good group here because we bring in a lot of information. We may not have sources but we

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bring in a lot of evidence-based research in to such processes. I was thinking when I was asked to speak about what we think of knowledge societies, can you hear? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. And I was thinking that for us to achieve that we need a communications ecosystem that takes in to consideration the interest of all stakeholders. And I want to look at the Internet and say that anyone who uses the Internet is really a stakeholder. And we need to have those voices being heard. So in terms of Freedom of Expression, I think in the next ten years what we need to know to hear we want more stories that are still human interest, that have a human development aspect. We want to hear more stories of marginalized groups being able to utilize ICTs. For example, what ordinary women voices are saying. Are they able to articulate issues that can be considered in such voice, or are there issues going to be taken using a general lens. And when they assume a general lens they also assume an inferiority area. We also want to see, you know, marginalized groups like People with Disabilities also. What are their voices in this Forum. We are constantly seeing a lower speech on line. Speech that is assuming ethnicity. Information that is being put out there that, you know, information that lacks ethics. So it is information that defames people, lies and we need to start thinking of what are the implications. And I know in 2005 I guess a lot of us have never envisaged that this -- the convergence would happen. There would be some information revelation uptake of mobile phones for people and phones helping especially Africans to adopt the Internet. We had never envisaged that but then the challenges have continued to come. So even as we talk of the need to have information, I think we need more useful information, especially the information that can be used by ordinary people so that they are able to enjoy digital dividends or they are able to enjoy digital opportunities.

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And we know information is powerful. When they have useful information, it will give them confidence to do what it is that they do out there. If they are in farming, it will allow them to practice better farming methods. If it is women, they will have better information on their productive information and all the information that exists out there. This is in policy making, the need to embrace multi-stakeholderism in decision making processes and, you know, we know multi-stakeholderism is about inclusivity. We would like to see policy processes that include stakeholders, policy processes that recognize all stakeholders but have varied roles and responsibilities that are defined by the policy process that is under discussion. And let's remember that no stakeholder can determine their responsibility of another stakeholder in isolation. And just to conclude on this session I want to suggest some four building blocks that probably should be addressed in the next ten years when UNESCO takes its work. And one we need to protect and promote Human Rights and recognize the importance in realizing knowledge societies. Two, they need to establish environments that will facilitate economic and social development on a foundation of Human Rights and rule of law. Three, we need to encourage more governors that encourage multi-stakeholder and participation including at ordinary debates and at decision making processes. And four, we need to ensure that the Internet remains open, isn't constrained by technology or burdensome regulations. Thank you. (Applause.) >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much, Grace. That was very, very interesting. I would like to leave one question hanging in the air. If the Minister here was not the Minister in Rwanda but the Minister in Kenya, right and, one specific request you could put to him, something not a principle, but one actual

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measure, resource measure, you don't have to answer now, what do you think it might be. But while Salma is speaking maybe we can think about that issue. Salma, Dr. Salma Abbasi, our next speaker is chairperson and founder of the e-Worldwide Group, a consortium of 37 companies and universities focused on providing multiple services in key areas, sustainable development, empowerment, alternative energy, recycling environment and management consultancy. That's more than four. But nevertheless you are obviously very active in the field. She was awarded a senior research fellowship in the international policy department in Kings College in London in 2002. And she has worked intensively and actively with Governments and stakeholders. >> SALMA ABBASI: Thank you very much. I am really delighted to be here and to be invited by UNESCO. I think this is a very important topic. I am sorry it is the end of the day and everyone is tired. Bear with me, I am going to touch on four key points in the context of diversity. I am very happy that I am the last speaker because I will talk to Grace's points and John's points and also my brother Adama of local language. The first point is policy. When we are talking about diversity and impact and UNESCO's role and giving access the first place we have to start is Government is having effective policies that are created in a consultative process with all the key stakeholders. From our research and my own research in Ph.D. is looking at ICT policies. One of the biggest challenges as technology moves forward is that we are losing and creating a greater digital divide for gender and for people who are elderly and for people who are disabled and, of course, unless we keep our children ahead with having the right capabilities and access we are also creating a gap for children in countries where they don't have access to the digital equipment. Policies need to be formulated in a consultative, practical

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local context. The implementable policies. Some collect dust. Some read it once or twice and that's it. A policy has to be something that you can use in your country. It has to be something that can be measured. If you can't measure it, it will never get done. So American statement what gets measured gets done. If the policy is not measured will not work. If it is not integrated with other ministries it will also not work. We have to be practical about how we do this. For WSIS+10 I believe that we need to have some more pragmatic indicators. I use the word impact indicators, leading and lagging. I know that John knows what that means. It is very important for us to be able to do that especially as we spend money. That's the point on policy. The second part is going to Adama's point on local language. I am saying and suggesting and agreeing totally when we talk about knowledge society and my friend Naveen has left but the first university was in Egypt. That's where everyone from around the world went to learn in Cairo. So when we talk about knowledge definition is important when we talk about local cultural, social context it is also important that knowledge that we want to provide or want to give access to has to be useable. Has to be practical. Has to add value to the lives of the people. If we want to look at Korea, and let's look at Sweden and let's look at Afghanistan, can you see the differences there? It is not one size fits all. If we try to move that way we would be in trouble. And the communities that we are talking about helping would be in trouble. And in there I want to give you an example. As a technologist I am passionately promoting technology use in a safe and secure world by starting the child online initiative with the ITU many, many years ago and now working with UNESCO on something called GCAP. I started a programme with my company three years ago in Nigeria

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trying to promote ICTs for girls in school. We surveyed 123 schools in Northern Nigeria where all the problems and not a single school had a chair, bench, table. The roofs were all moldy and the ground was cement with pockets of holes in it. You couldn't sit on it and that's where the kids were. I said oh, my God, how can I talk about ICT here. They need tables and chairs and they need water and they need toilets. So I pushed my health division and said let's do something practical that's going to save lives here and give them water. Let's put a generator and create a sustainable system in there that is going to focus on nutrition, health and hygiene and start making them strong and we will talk about ICT later. We have to be realistically open-minded and fluid by what we mean by development. The third item is John's point on public/private partnership. I want to add another dimension to that in the context of people public/private partnerships. Putting the people at the front will help us have greater impact and looking at needs and looking at local context and looking at what is going to work and what they actually need and it is definitely community engagement. If we don't do that as Governments something isn't going to work. There is always, always an opportunity where there is need. We have to listen carefully and be open. The final point I want to make is probably for my new friend, John Pierre from Rwanda is in the context of security in youth. ICTs have a great potential to provide jobs. They can provide jobs for people with all skills, all levels of intellectual capability and competency. It is a misnomer to say that ICTs need super bright people. It is not true. The ecosystem of ICTs is great. We have to look at it again with an open mind and outside the box. If we were to do that, we would be able to address some of the huge security issues that we are dealing with for sure in Africa and

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North Africa. And I am in Nigeria and for sure in Nigeria. We have to work with enlightened colleagues and get them to talk to each other and make partnerships with private organizations like John's. The Intel World Ahead Program is something that is very practical and very needed. The whole process cannot be done by Governments alone. And you need the private sector to be more efficient and effective because we have to deliver goals and targets. And if we don't that we won't be successful in our companies and Governments need this push to bring all the parties together. And Minister Salma Abbasi, she was talking about the tussle between Governments owning cybersecurity which Ministry should own it. It is the Ministry -- those complex issues when you bring the private sector to the table they can help actors and neutral parties. Thank you very much. (Applause.) >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much, Salma. I noticed Adama nodding in approval when you were talking. As the other person from the private sector I want to add you to the question that I left hanging and put one of our senior managers here from the private do feel free to answer, what is a project that you will say no good and what is a project that you will say yes, I will work on this either alone or with UNESCO or some other agency? >> JOHN DAVIES: Do you want me to answer the sustainability question first? Or this one? >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Take it as you want. >> JOHN DAVIES: I was getting excited about the question about continuing to invest in these programmes and that really is the sustainability question I think. And it boils down some degree simple. First you have to look at missions of what companies are trying to do. And one of our missions is in the next decade to reach every person on the planet and impact their lives somehow

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positively with ICT. That is the statement of that. And so if you look at this that's been in place for a long time in different forms. But if you look at this and say when did Intel teaching start, 1999. Going on its 15th year. And when did the science and engineering foundation. That's 1999 as well. That's in its 15th year. And when you add programmes like that Governments look at you and say I love your encouraging the master in science and engineering, but what I don't want to happen is next year you decide your budget has been cut a bit and I have put a programme across the country and everyone is excited and is coming to the U.S. and you decide your budget to cut back and you don't do it. The reason why I think is your question and the reason why it is a simple one we spend about an education -- in education philanthropy about a hundred million dollars and that's been the budget of the corporate first for years. When you look at education, it is a multi-billion dollar business for us. It is multi-billion. It is in the 4 to 5 billion dollar level. So at that level you can commit this and continue to do it. You have to make a little bit of profit along the way and bring out the hundred million and you can keep investing in it as long as it is a business. Now if you find the source of funds for this that isn't a sustainable business, what will happen is one, you will have and the next year you may have it and the next year you might not have it at all. A sustainable business lets you invest on a continuum basis and it is the core of your business. So we pick long-term goals and those are the ones we take to Government. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Can I ask you -- can you tell me an example of a programme that you had to close and why? Because there may be some lessons learned in avoiding situations in which programmes close. You have given us the good news. I want you to give me the bad news.

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>> JOHN DAVIES: I am going to think about that for a second and let Salma talk to it. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Salma, you would like to ask the audience? >> SALMA ABBASI: It is 10 to 6 and I know we finish at 6. I would like to ask the audience if they have any questions for us, if anybody has any questions. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: The gap, while they are thinking you give us your answer, the one that parallels. >> SALMA ABBASI: Since everyone is either shy or tired we have indeed started a programme and closed and the programme was to do with teaching in the rural areas of Pakistan. And the reason why we stopped was because people were worried about what we were teaching and how and why we were teaching the teachers and what was our agenda. We were definitely agents of the CIA coming to do something bad. And we then had to terminate that. I am very practical and I don't want my staff to be harmed in any way, but the community just didn't understand why did this foreigners come in and actually come and help us. That's sad which is why learning from these -- coming back to the learning, the learning before you begin the programme you have to build a relationship with the community. It is very time consuming and I live on a plane. In fact, at the moment I am spending 90% of my time in Nigeria because we set up our new operation there. I am practically doing what I am saying and suggesting. You have to build and win the trust of the people you want to work with, that your agenda is very clear and it is more on a humanitarian and trying to help them do X, Y, Z. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much. We have crossed the gap. UNDP would like to take the floor. >> UNDP: Thank you so much. And thank you for very this

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engaging and very informative discussion here. If I may ask for your perspective, this is a statement just made which is something that we in the development arena actually had to contend with quite frequently which is the reference to the sequencing of efforts. And the priorities connected with that. In your context of going to a village with the demands on the priorities on health and access to water and so on and so forth but what would you think about the proposition or this perspective that use of ICTs could also enable communities to, in fact, ensure that they do have the services and the access to the water and to health that maybe is not very clear at the moment on the ground in some context? So I am referring to here actually on governance matters. So and we do have access in UNDP where we use ICT to make sure that local communities are able to communicate to the leader what the priorities are, even in the SMS and even simple little things, alerts local leaders and even the national Government or the regional Government or the capital in saying that you said we have water here or school here. In fact, we don't. Could you please respond to this? And how is that perspective resonating in your sector? And what do you think about the approach in responding to? Thank you. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much. Sorry, I didn't get your name. Your name? >> Minerva. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much. That seems to be a governance question which we should ask to the two aspects of Governments which is Civil Society and the Minister. This question of the legitimacy of a programme in terms of the way its purposes, its limits, its possibilities are thoroughly communicated to those who are the actual objects, participants in the programme. Let me just see if Grace, would you like to say anything about that?

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Making a programme seem real and effective in local terms. >> GRACE GITHAIGA: One of the -- okay. I will just say that how you make it real is by making it relevant, No. 1. An example of ICT, for example, watching comment about women, and especially ordinary women say in informal settlements. They will tell you they need to see how ICTs can make economic sense to them. And so for them to really take on a programme they -- for an ICT programme I think that they will also need a skill. So you mix slight with skill so they are able to embrace it. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you very much, Grace. Anyone else on the panel want to respond? Salma would like to. >> JOHN DAVIES: There is one aspect of the question and Salma and I have compared notes on this. I remember about seven years ago we went in to that place outside Cairo, very poor suburb there and put wireless connectivity in to one of the hospitals. It was our way of showing we can do 4G. And it was a new version 4G and let's show it can work. So we put that in there. At the time a number of people said to us why are you doing that when they need a sewer. Why don't you spend that money on the sewer. But I don't have any experience with sewers. We know we have to put IT in places and help them work. That's what we are good at. Let someone who is good with the sewer and hygiene take care of that. We will focus on those areas. So I went back there about nine months later and I say let's present you what we have done. You connected with this WiMAX and let's take you in to the school. And they took me in there and the children are lined up with the computers. This is what we have done. We made this proposal to clean up the park and there is a railroad across the village and children are always getting injured. And there is three ways of approaching this and here is what it will cost. We have looked at the crops in the area and we are all doing similar stuff. If we

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were to combine with the crops with the neighboring village we can have a more sustainable output. And here are some graphs that we want to show the leaders. These were done by 10-year-old children in groups of three or four. And at that point we helped that and these people can aspire to create value to the local people and other people can contribute in different areas. It stuck in my mind in programmes that I see, stick at what you are good at as opposed to trying to do things that we are not so good at. >> SALMA ABBASI: I think it is a very good question that you ask and what you have to do is exactly what John is saying. Intel is a technology company focused on technology. We wear a different hat and we have five divisions. So it can span -- luckily for us we have a health division. We did not go in the school and put tables and chairs. We got big plastic mats because that wasn't our capability. I can't fix the rules. But from a health context we did everything else that was addressing our issue. However we -- obviously ICT, the place I am in we then looked at the primary health care centre and with a Ministry of Health we are launching a programme using the mobile phone for bringing basically the monitoring and identifying where the women who are pregnant and also training the women on hygiene and all the things to do with life. What I will tell you it is not easy, believe me it is not easy. UNICEF in Nigeria do a lot of workshops on hand washing and they do that on international day and then they go away. I am always looking for sustainability. I look and listen for my people for sure. What is life threatening and what is within my capability to prevent someone from dying. That's our No. 1 focus. Our work is security and development. If someone was going to be setting up WiMAX and it was going to help kids from dying from diarrhea today and looking at fresh graves I won't do that. Now how do you do it

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at a strategic level where you are -- it is the work with the Government. The Government knows the problems at best. And then Ministers are here. They would be -- sorry. They would be able to answer better how you can look at that from a longer content. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: Thank you. Would you like to say anything on this question or you have something else to say? >> JEAN PHILBERT NSENGIMANA: How do you make a programme be relevant to the people the programme is supposed to benefit to? I look at this from a supply and demand perspective. If -- in the ideal world everything should be demand driven. That's why we put people ahead of the public/private partnership. But when we talk of innovation and most of the things are innovation driven. Some of the things that are new. There is no demand for that. So demand can be created and then stimulated and sometimes what we lack is enough awareness and education around innovation and how they can change people's lives. We make most of the mistake to think that something is good, it has been proven. And it is cost effective and it is going to work. And it doesn't. Because we invest solely in bringing the people onboard. Throwing innovation and good things, even free stuff to people will not ensure adoption and transformation that is required. So I think in every programme education, awareness building cannot be overemphasized. >> ADAMA SAMASSEKOU: Yes, I will be brief. Even concerning the similar organizations we always have to be very clear. Obviously ICTs is not the panacea. It depends on how we use them and the policies that the Governments creates. If there is not a policy that will lead people to be participative to want to do something, I don't think we will get there. Final accounts, what is important is policies and Governments must be fully convinced of the fact that the usage of ICT is something that is going to allow them to decrease the difficulties

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that they are facing, for example, at the level of agriculture, persons and others and how to combine the needs of the population or the supply and offer in the private sector. This is something that can be dealt with adequately if the Government can take this in to account. Thank you. >> ANDREW TAUSSIG: So I think we can conclude now. There was just one person who wanted to say something. Can it wait? Is it desperate? You are not burning to ask the question? Thank you very much for that. Because now I would like to conclude. It has been a long day, and I would like to thank all our panelists for listening and contributing and to say thank you very much. And I hope this conclusions come out which our staff can pull together. So thank you very much and give yourself an applause. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you very much. (Session concluded at 1803 CET) ***** This is being provided in rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ****

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