IGF 2017 WS #200 Two Networks Will Shape Your Digital Future

According to the World Atlas 67% of the developing world is still without household electricity in 2017.  This translates into roughly 1.3 billion citizens in the world today lack access to reliable power/electricity to serve their daily needs, power healthcare facilities, education, and home/personal uses. The Internet is viewed as a “right”, and the world recognizes the importance of creating affordable access to the Internet and the online world, yet the role of power/electricity is often ignored. To date, at the IGF, there has been significant focus on addressing the digital divide.  Yet, the role of power/electricity is just now being put on the front burner at the IGF2017.

This is a critical opportunity, and this workshop will bring together experts who can speak to how they are addressing solving the power challenges in different situations – some in rural areas, and some in smart villages and smart cities.

Advancements in technology have provided the opportunity to generate and store power/electricity in small mobile units suitable for deployment in rural areas in developing countries at affordable price. These units can, for example, serve the increasing power needs of communications towers and do so with clean renewable power as well as serve the needs of the local communities setting up business opportunities with established anchor tenants.  Additionally, technology advancements hold the promise of delivering much needed baseload generation to stand up industrial development, education, healthcare, major infrastructure projects, information/content processing, storage (caching), transit, etc. Delivering electricity and access will help advance work on the UN’s SDGs (see link to UN SDGs site … https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs)

AGENDA

Format: 90-minute Roundtable

Setting the Stage:

Co-Moderator, Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, Chairman, Ghana Dot Com LTD

(3 minutes)

Co-Moderator, Manu Bhardwaj, Vice President for Research and Insight, MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth (3 minutes)

Key Speakers:

Ehsanollah Bayat, Founder and Chairman of the Bayat Group, Private Sector, Afghanistan

Richard Devereaux, Sr. Vice President, Government Affairs, Texzon Technologies, Private Sector, USA

Mohammad N. Azizi, Ph.D., Chairman, Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA), Government, Afghanistan

Vint Cerf, VP and Chief Internet Evangelist, Global Policy Development, Google, Private Sector, USA

Respondents:

Nilmini Rubin, V.P. International Development, Tetra Tech, Private Sector, USA

Bill Ash, Strategic Program Manager for the IEEE Standards Association, Technical Community, USA

Linda Ethel Mensah, Energy Information Centre Manager, National Energy Data Processing and Information Centre (NEDPIC), Government of Ghana, Government, Ghana

Following the lightening talks 20 minutes will be devoted to moderated interactive participation with the speakers and the audience (live and remote)

The final 10 minutes of the program will be devoted to key points and messages of the roundtable talks and discussions captured by the rapporteurs to be delivered to the co-moderators in mini statements of 2 minute each, then each co-monitor will have 3 minutes to sum up.

Rapporteurs:

Lee McKnight, Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, Syracuse University, USA

Omar Mansoor Ansari, President, TechNation, Technical Community, Afghanistan

Relevance of the Session:
The Internet is "fueled"/ enabled by electricity and this fact is taken for granted and rarely discussed in developing countries where it is ubiquitous, reliable and affordable. This is not the case in developing countries where it is often the "elephant in the room" when discussing the challenges of providing access in remote/rural areas. This workshop will deal with recent technologies that have both merged the Internet and electricity with the introduction of IoT (Internet of Things) enabled electrical machines, appliances and devices that are both connected to the electricity grid/network and the Internet bringing unimagined synergistic benefits in energy efficiencies and have brought down prices such that electricity generation/ capture and storage can be done remotely to provide both reliable and affordable power that will greatly enable and leverage the benefits of Internet access. This issue is relatively new to the IGF but critically important to addressing the UN's SDGs and are important topics to begin to discuss at the IGF. The synergy of access and electricity will "Shape our Digital Future"

Tag 1: Critical Internet Resources
Tag 2: #sustainabledevelopment
Tag 3: Emerging Tech

Interventions:
I will have an excellent moderator in Manu Bhardwaj who was part of President Obama's Department of State when President Obama launched Power Africa. Manu is very knowledgeable in both the areas of Internet access and electricity/power. He will be joined by professionals from Government, professional standards groups, the private sector and other parties. We will have distributed and posted online short white papers on the subject from the speakers so that all attendees are familiar with the basic issues from different perspectives before the roundtable started. We will be aggressive in assuring participation from both the in room and online participants. 

Diversity:
Of the tent speakers invited we will have four females. We will have experts from Government, private sector, professional standards setting group, an NGO, and Civil Society. We will have speakers from the US, Europe, Africa, Spain, and the Caribbean represented. We will reach out to the University Community through Mastercard's Foundation and their affiliation with Colleges and Universities world wide. 

Onsite Moderator: Manu Bhardwaj, VP for Research and Insight, Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, Private Sector, USA  (Co-Moderator); Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, Chairman Ghana Dot Com LTD., Academia/Technical, Ghana (Co-Moderator)
Online Moderator: Garland McCoy
Rapporteur: Anders Halverson

Online Participation:
This will be my tenth IGF workshop and everyone I have been privileged to host has enjoyed robust online participation and with this years moderator Manu Bhardwaj and his years of experience with the IGF as a participator and his leadership role at MasterCard's Foundation, their active role with colleges and Universities around the world I am very confident we will have robust online participation. In addition to Manu we have Bill Ash who is with IEEE and their global membership base is impressive and will be encouraged to get online and participate as well. 

Discussion facilitation:
As mentioned above each speaker will have written a one page white paper to post online and distribute to all attendees to give some depth and perspectives to this new issue at the IGF. The moderator will solicit questions from both the in-room and online attendees and have ready to go questions that will keep the audience engaged and the speakers on their toes. We will be in a round table format but will stager the chairs to give a sense on openness and accessibility. My ten years of hosting workshops has taught me the importance of makeing the venue as inviting to attendees as possible. We will make this workshop fun, and educational. 

Conducted a Workshop in IGF before?: Yes
Link to Report: https://www.intgovforum.org/content/igf-2016-day-3-room-8-ws271-civil-society-and-private-sector-build-ict-support-for-sdgs