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Digital Pacific Conference Report supported by Conference Objective “Getting our Governments and Economies Ready for the Digital Age” Increased connectivity is beginning to level the playing field for Pacific Island nations including Samoa. This connectivity has been brought through major hardware investment in Submarine Cables providing an array of opportunities for government, private sector and citizens. Experience around the world, however, has shown that technology of itself is no panacea in achieving sustainable development. The inaugural Digital Pacific Conference aimed to gather government delegates from Samoa and neighbouring states to discuss digital transformation with international expert-practitioners, academics, and private sector and NGO representatives answering the following questions: • How can Governments unlock the potential of digital tech in the public sector and foster a digital economy? • How can Governments ensure that change would be inclusive and sustainable? • What have others learned and what pitfalls could be avoided? • What can be done to ensure digital transformation efforts in Samoa and the region are more coherent, scalable, collaborative and economical? Digital Pacific Samoa, the national component of the Conference aimed to narrow down the discussions to the national scale, take stock of current initiatives and produce the initial contours of a national digital strategy with many opportunities for regional sharing. TATTE Conference Centre: Venue for Digital Pacific 2018 2 Digital Pacific The Digital Pacific Regional Conference took place in Apia, Samoa on 7-8 June 2018 and was attended by 14 Countries, 30+ Speakers and 170+ participants. These included key international stakeholders, regional delegates from neighbouring Pacific Island States, international expert practitioners and national representatives from both the public and the private sector. The event was followed by a National Workshop on 11 June, entitled Digital Pacific Samoa which gathered national representatives and international partners. The agendas of both components can be found in Annex 1 and 2 respectively. Speaker and company profiles are contained in Annex 3. To signal the importance of private sector participation and partnerships, the conference was combined with two side events, Pacific Connect and the Youth Co:Lab Samoa. The Youth Co:Lab was a 2-day workshop mobilized young Samoan entrepreneurs and determined young minds to ideate and evolve their ideas on tackling sustainable development challenges. The young entrepreneurs presented their ideas to the plenary Regional Conference and the best three pitches received prizes from private sector sponsors. Given the limited scope of this report both side events will be reported elsewhere. Digital Pacific 2018 was co-organised by MCIT, the UNDP Samoa Multi- Country Office and UNDP GCPSE Singapore, with significant additional funding support from Australia. Private sector supported through sponsorship provided by Digicel, Bluesky and Huawei. It was live- streamed and used a Conference App, Convene in a bid to help the environment and in the spirit of digitalization. The sun shining bright on a future Digital Pacific (Photo Credit NZHC) For full Agenda See Annex 1 For speaker, company and delegate profiles See Annex 3 Videos and Powerpoints available at ws.undp.org Youtube @UNDPSamoa and Twitter @DPConference18 3 Conference Summary Keynote Addresses Samoa Minister for ICT Hon Afamasaga Lepuiai Rico Tupai Opening the event, Samoa’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Honourable Afamasaga Lepuiai Rico Tupai emphasised the need for regional partnerships given the common challenges faced by Pacific SIDS. These include small size and narrow resource and export base; exposure to global environmental challenges and external economic shocks as well as remoteness from most large markets and reliance on remittances. These common but unique issues ought to be addressed through for regionally relevant digital initatives that build on timely exchanges of information “Thanks to digitalization, Samoa will and cooperation. Connectivity will bring never be as remote as it once markets nearer, connect was”— Hon Afamasaga Lepuiai Pacific sellers to the world Rico Tupai and reduce the high operating costs of government. The Minister framed this Conference in the context of the SAMOA Pathway and its Mid Term Review due to take place after the conference. UN Assistant Secretary-General, UNDP Bureau Director for Asia and the Pacific, Haoliang Xu Mr Xu addressed the audience, highlighting UNDP’s commitment to achieving digitalization of the Pacific at the highest levels of the organization. He told of his trip from the airport to central Apia where he was surprised to have access to 4G internet in a remote village. He emphasized the need for an inclusive Digital Pacific that ensures that nobody is left behind as per the SDGs and Agenda 2030. He outlined a number of examples where technology is “The technology is already here. The already empowering people in question is who is using it, who is the Asia-Pacific region, from benefitting from it … we need an MPs in Bhutan who are now inclusive Digital Pacific—Mr able to remotely contact their Haoliang Xu constituents, to an access to information project in Bangladesh where now no citizens needs to travel more than 4kms to get digitized government services. 4 This future will require a mindset change, he advised, that sees technology as an opportunity and not a threat. Nevertheless, he warned that technology may also bring with it unforeseen changes and that societies and governments need to be ready to deal with this also. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University, UNS-G’s Adviser on 2030 Agenda Professor Sachs emphasized the digital world of big data as transformative in all areas of the SDGs– including for health, education, energy, banking, climate change and importantly for Samoa in employment. Further, the ICT revolution has the capacity to help nations achieve all “We have no stronger opportunity 17 of the SDG, with particularly for breakthroughs in all of the key exciting opportunities. Professor Sachs highlighted smart grids, e- areas of economic social and currency and e-payments and data environmental development than driven smart agriculture as through digital technologies” – particularly transformative for Professor Jeffrey Sachs Pacific SIDS like Samoa. Professor Sachs emphasized the new online models of working which could have a transformative on the traditional migration and remittance model currently practised in Pacific Islands such as Samoa, whereby young people can work online while living at home on the islands. Finally, Professor Sachs indicated that the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network would be eager to partner in the future to help make Digital Pacific a reality. Conference Structure Day 1 was conceptualized to inspire the audience with relevant digital transformation experiences delivered by practitioner-experts from countries that are known to be pioneers, such as Estonia, New Zealand as well as the Caribbean region (to include a SIDS perspective). Five panels covered key aspects of digital transformation, such as digital identity, digital economy, digital government, skills & education as well as cyber security. 5 Day 2 started with a Tech Showcase featuring 9 solutions from the region and beyond, showcasing the latest in digital technologies and their relevance in the Pacific Island context. This included: remote sensing and unmanned aerial vehicles, blockchain enabled voting and community engagement, broadband and the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) in the digitalisation of documents, satellite-based connectivity for remote areas, as well as public services delivery in remote communities leveraging mobiles. The afternoon of Day 2 highlighted regional coordination and collaboration and participants joined an exercise exploring possible digital futures, culminating a vote on the most convincing future vision (the winner was a remote learning event delivered to students in Samoa by Elon Musk via a holographic image). The presentation of the Youth Co:Lab winners closed the day. Parallel to the conference young Samoan entrepreneurs had worked on their pitches for business ideas and were awarded a range of prizes from sponsors and will continue to be supported by the Samoa Chamber of Commerce through an MOU signed between UNDP Samoa MCO and the Chamber. 6 Key Insights from Digital Pacific 2018 Digital Identity A recurring message of the two days of dialogues was the importance of a Digital Identifier (ID) for individuals and businesses to facilitate digital Government services and the evolution of a digital economy. Mr Hannes Astok, Director of the e-Governance Academy of Estonia, shared the transformation journey of Estonia and its key building blocks: digital (and mobile) ID and x-road (the backbone for-data sharing that connects 900 organisations and businesses daily). He emphasized that while these were important features of Digital Government, transforming the back office (business process re-engineering), enhanced coordination among departments (data and process sharing) and a slow but steady cultural change were three key pillars of success. Mariana Dahan, CEO and founder of the World Identity Network and former coordinator of the World Bank’s Identification for Development programme stressed the importance of digital identity in tackling target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development
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