The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Paris, France, from 12 to 14 November 2018. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MARILYN CADE: Hello. I think we are going to do this. Those sitting behind, can you please come forward so that we will have a good shot. We want to see everyone close today, the panel.
We will be starting in two minutes.
Please, no sitting behind. Thank you. Thank you. We are starting.
Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues, participants, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to extend to you all a very warm welcome on behalf of (?) of this session and in time and to see how grateful we are to you all. Thank you all to all the moderators and to the speakers to share in the knowledge of digital inclusion and accessibility.
The world is undergoing a difficult transformation. At the very first reach from part of the world our (?) first (?) lagging behind. Our citizens, I mean all our citizens need to prepare for a (?). In this new era of digital information and technology, we must ensure that no one is left behind.
So, in this digital collision that is sweeping across the globe, we all warmly welcome to this session and this remains our global to (?).
My name is Marilyn Cade. I will be one of the co-moderators. So, greetings to all of you. I'll turn it over to my co-moderator for introduction, and then we will begin the program.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Good morning, my name is Eldrid Jordan, from cape down South Africa. Exciting to be here. We have amazing specialists that is going to just give a brief round digital inclusion and accessibility, and I think that we're going to start right away. We only have 80 minutes, and so we are going to be running a really, really tight schedule, and in taking questions straight afterwards.
Thank you very much.
>> MARILYN CADE: So, let me give you a little tip that will be helpful to you. Later, after we hear from and experts, we will turn to the audience, both online and off line, and I'm going to turn to our co-moderator for remote moderation to introduce himself and explain that, but I want to give you a heads-up that when we come to the question-and-answer period, when we conclude the expert speech comments, you will -- we will not take comments, we will only take questions from all of you guys.
You have only a minute to ask your question, and the respondents have only 90 seconds to respond so that we can take as many questions as possible. So, what we're going to do is ask you to write your questions out and we're going to take all the questions on digital accessibility and all the questions on digital inclusion and then ask the experts to respond to them, so we can get as much interaction and exchange. That means when you think about a question, write it out and think about it and make sure you can speak it in one minute.
And, I want to turn to Paul Rowney to introduce the remote concept and your role.
>> PAUL ROWNEY: Good morning, we have remote participants, and we have the floor open to the present participants and the remote participants. I will be monitoring who is connecting online and then share those questions forward.
Thank you.
>> MARILYN CADE: And, I guess I should have told Paul this, but don't cheat, and pretend to be a remote participant if you're in the room.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: So, we're going to get straight into the digital inclusion part. I'm going to do brief introductions on who is on the panel, starting with Ms. Rubin, Vice-President of tech track in India. Mr. Charles Shaban, Executive Director for Intellectual Property in Jordan, Ms. Das, the Director for Public Policy in Facebook for Facebook, Ms. Nathalie Vuaillat, who is the Director for Legal Counsel on eBay, and Mr. Mr. Edil Solomon from the African Mission.
We are going to start directly for comments and a brief presentation from Ms. Rubin, who will start the conversation. She is the Vice-President of tech and so we will give over to her right now. Thank you very much.
>> Ms. Rubin: Thank you very much. I actually just got promoted so I'm executive Vice-President, and we are -- I'm based near Washington D.C. in Arlington Virginia. Our company is out of California. And, we do engineering and consulting work. I laid our international energy practice and recently added Internet to our practice because we realize they go hand in hand.
If you think about the last time you used the Internet, or you might be using it right now, the one thing that you need in addition to your device and that Internet connection is electricity. You have to charge your devisor you have it plugged in. And, electricity and Internet go hand in hand. You cannot have the Internet without electricity. About a billion people don't have electricity right now. It's a huge number, and if you think four billion people don't have Internet access, there's definitely an overlap there, right, if you don't have electricity, it is almost impossible to have the Internet unless you're charging and paying for charges in different locations.
So, we are working very hard to increase electricity and Internet access together. We work for clients like the World Bank, USAID doing projects on electricity, and what we're finding is that if you do them together at the same time, you safe a lot of time and a lot of money. If you imagine putting down fiberoptic cables for internet access, if you're doing at the same time you're doing electricity, you save tons of money. Just the digging up and putting down of the road is 90 percent of the cost of the installation. So, just doing it at the same time is huge.
It's also better for the environment. You're not making so much impact through construction. So, there is a lot you can be doing together. But, on the other side, what is really interesting is we've had electricity, it was invented 140 years ago, and we still have a billion people that don't have it. And, why is that? That is not a technological problem, that is a social problem. That's how do we include people in rural areas who are disadvantaged, who don't haves much money or who are politically in areas that don't get attention. All of those challenges, electricity, are the same challenges we're seeing with the Internet, and we can bring those solutions together.
So, I'm really excited to tackle these issues hand in hand, and I look forward to working with all of you on them.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you so much. Charles, we're going to give it up to you core comments.
>> CHARLES SHABAN: I'm Charles Shaban intellectual property of the organization, and I will be talking about digital inclusion, not about intellectual property. Don't worry. (Laughter). So, this is -- yeah, I've been an old MAG member, just to tell you a little bit about me. And, our involvement with the IGF. And, currently I'm chairing the Arab MAG, by the way.
So, going back to our main subject, so we only have three minutes, as our moderators told us.
Mainly I will concentrate on some points related to the digital inclusion and how we see. I think my colleague just mentioned the rural areas. This is something important, how to reach the rural areas, and as you noticed from the description of our session, there was some questions mentioned, and some of them, like for example, will 5G help and so on. In general, I can tell you from experience that sometimes we need the wireless to be a solution to reach areas where it's hard. Just recently I heard about some project, I'm sure a lot heard about it, that is some rural areas, they are even using the frequencies which are not used anymore for the television to transfer Internet. So, this could be a solution when it's hard to extend, let’s say, fiber optics and Copper lines and much cheaper, of course.
Some new technologies, we don't have a lot of information about because it's not yet there. We heard a lot, we heard a lot about the 5G. That is not only a spectrum, its services included in new technology. So, maybe we can use this new service to reach the other issue of when we say digital inclusion. It's not only reaching the areas, it's reaching the people with the limited accessibility and limited knowledge. Some of them, even, I just heard from our great moderator this morning that 700 percent is still ill litter rate, each. So, this is something we think we need to think about, to have inclusion. People that don't know English, for example, maybe they know other languages, and this is something to adhere to.
The local language is important on the Internet to have more. As an example, in my region, of course, the Arabic language is still less than 3 percent on the Internet, bet better from three years ago. I'm from Jordan. That 75 percent of the era brick content is mainly from Jordan generated. So, this will help the at least the non-English or French speakers to reach some for information on the Internet.
And, one last issue I think to mention, so I don't have a lot of time for now, and later we can talk about, going to business site. Since I'm business sector, I think even business besides the known of course role of them of helping and working with ISPs and other Internet providers, I think we should have something included in the HR systems inside the firms to let our employees know more, maybe connected to promotion. So, even if you want to, you cannot reach another level unless you have a specific level of knowledge mainly using the Internet and online.
So, I think this is I will stop here so leave time for my colleagues. Thank you.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you. I think it's really, really great if there is one thing that was really clear at the IGF conference now was that partnerships are going to make this work, and a new way of thinking, we cannot just depend on governance or Governments to make this happen, but a collaborative effort between the private sector Governments and now with networks coming about, I think that we are going to make it work.
The next speaker that we will have is (?) the director for public policy in Facebook. So, Nathalie, the director for legal counsel, eBay.
>> NATHALIE VUAILLAT: Hi. For eBay, digital inclusion means using technology to connect people and build opportunity for everyone in the world. (?) digital kills literacy for inclusion can only be addressed electively, as you said. We need both private and public sectors commitment to support digital development, especially in favor of the economic development.
The business of pure online marketplaces like eBay enable the community of (?) to launch and expense their online presence by offering them the digital skills and tools they need.
The on like marketplace business relies only on the success of sellers who try it on their platform to sell their items around the world. To support as much (?) eBay has been working quite hard lately on solution to make platform more available for all users by among the means enabling an off-line experience for users, particularly those in Developing Countries who do not have reliable network connectivity.
To underline the power of digital skills, I just would like to point out that 99 percent of our sellers export internationally in more than 23 countries. On like marketplaces are the only representative of the sellers, mainly small and business, medium size businesses. Those businesses are just the essence of the economic growth. The ICT has fully changed the retail distribution for very small businesses by allowing them to reach our customers outside their local communities without having to invest in physical facilities. We strongly believe that the cooperation with public authorities will anchor rage anyone in the world regardless their background, gender, identity, or experience to become an online entrepreneur. As said, on like marketplaces offer small and medium size businesses digital tools that enable them to accelerate their operation at home and abroad.
I would like to make a focus on women. Yeah. Everywhere in the world the number of women starting and running new businesses is actually growing. Women entrepreneurship rights are higher in countries with lower level of economic development. To support women in this area, eBay, as long as I know Facebook has developed a program named “She trades,” which consists in providing and support and regular webinar training on eCommerce issue. We cannot achieve the digital transformation without the help of public authorities.
They also have a major role to play in supporting entrepreneurs towards digital tools. One of the recommendations we have would be to test programs based on the combination of the digital ambassadors and innovative distance learning. With that, no (?) would be discriminated against regarding to its location and could benefit from inclusion.
To conclude, we strongly believe that this issue can only be addressed by common and joint efforts. In that regard, the private and the public sector must work hand in hand and we are the disposal of public authorities to collaborate on digital policies of today and tomorrow in favor of the training and the development of digital skills and literacy for inclusion for entrepreneurs.
Thank you very much.
>> I'm going to take the moderator opposite prerogative and pose a question to you, which you will have time to think about between now and when we get to the question-and-answer period, but the audience will have other questions, but here is my question.
In countries that don't yet have roads that are paved in rural parts of the Country, and that do not have reliable package delivery services or post Al delivery services, or do not have (Audio cutting in and out) actually deliver goods, can you think a little bit ahead about what kinds of public policies that might be needed to help to also amend the infrastructure. So, just park that and we will come to it later. But I cheated, because I studied up on some of these problems. (Laughter).
If we can just turn back for a minute to the previous speakers and ask if they wanted to make in one-minute extension to any of their comments? I think Bunmi.
>> I will build on the comment about gender and women. We've seen challenges and women include e in the Internet and actually with the number of people getting on the Internet increasing, the proportion of women is actually going down, because you have fewer women getting on line to the number of men getting on line. And, that's definitely a challenge that we need to work on. I think that really think about electricity access, some of the things that we're learning in that can be very much transferred into the tech sector of how to include women, how do you make sure that they have access, how do you deal with the gender issues in the community that are spill over into what are the (?) whether it is electricity or Internet, this is access to the modern world and the future, and a way people can control women and keep them from that, it completely spills over. So, it's something that we can handle in both areas.
>> Just one minute to carry on about women, in specific. I think when we include everyone, and especially women, as we said, this is a chance for any woman around the world, and of course any man, to have the same access anyone who is in a Developed Countries have the same access. So, this is a good chance to create more entrepreneurs, hopefully and small businesses and we find this helps even as our moderator mentioned, that is not only the government rule, it's business September tore has a role in it, the Civil Society, even. When we include more women, I am sure we will find more young new business women.
>> MARILYN CADE: So, now I'm going to pose a question for these folks to think about between now and then, and here is the question: So, in countries where there are not only economic barriers, but social and cultural barriers to women being expected or even allowed to have access to technology and even mobility and I'll just reference that I would like you all to start thinking about, so, and for the audience to start thinking about, do you know of some examples that are working?
I see in the audience my dear friend Mary Aduma (Sp) from Nigeria who participated last year at the IGF in a Day 0 event examining the challenges for in social, cultural, religious and economic barriers for women having access online and access to education. So, I think there are many experts out there that for digital inclusion f we are going to be able to be inclusive of all as you noted, 50 percent of the world's population is female. So, you have things to think about (Laughter) and plan ahead.
We're ready to go to the next question.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Before I go to the next speaker, I would like to recognize Mr. Moctlata (Sp) from the African Union, thank you for joining the session.
The next speaker will be from the African Union. The African Union has done great work around this project called PEOTA, I would like you to share what this digital platform is going to do. Thank you so much.
>> Thank you very much. My name is Ars (Sp). I am Senior Policy Commissioner with African Commission.
For as a policy developer, I think for us inclusion means that we need to factor in opportunity, access, knowledge, and skill in our policy development. If I can just give you a picture of the situation in Africa in terms of access, it's one-third of us in they have at best one-third have access to Internet, Internet contribution to the GDP is 1.1 percent. 60 percent of our population live in rural area and remote area of the continent.
The African union, I think one of the issues we're facing is to do with spectrum, and the African union works hard with our member state on the digital migration from analog to the digital television and we developed guidelines on that, and how the Country can make use of the digital dividends following the migration. Yes, we have a very exciting initiative called BRITA, which stands for policy regulation initiative for digital Africa. This is just an attempt to reach the digital divide on the continent. FRITA has three components. One component has to do with spectrum harmonization, and ITU is going to be implementing that aspect. It's a very ambitious, by the way, initiative. It is a $3 million initiative. And, it is a collaboration between the African Union commission and the European Commission.
The second component is to do with the capacity building for members on Internet Governance, and this is going to be all member states and multistakeholders capacity building.
The last component is we are building digital platform for regulators. This is going to be one-stop shop for national policies at a Continental level, as well as harmonization tool for all policies and regulations at the national level. As I said, we also have a training module on Internet Governance, DNS, and all ICT policies.
We also are going to -- this platform is going to incorporate a database. A digital database. ICT the status of ICT in Africa, and hopefully is going to be up to date so that the (?) can go into the data system and know where we are and stand at. As I said also, we're going to have harmonization tool for regulations and policies on the continent.
In addition to that, we have also another initiative. We have set to leverage post office in the remote area. This infrastructure exists, but they are two issues facing this. Number one, electricity, and connectivity. So, what we are doing, we already have a draft proposal on that where we are going to do solar, we are going to utilize solar energy for electricity, and connect to those post offices through and they become, like, center, ICT center for e government services and so forth. I think if I have more time, I am out of time.
>> MARILYN CADE: 30 seconds.
>> 30 seconds. I think basically these are the two initiatives. We are also working with Internet Society on community networks. We have done so far we've done good job with them, and we are trying to in the near future, we're going to have a stand on community, a global summit on community network so we see what we can do on meeting to reach those un served communities, as well as in the next few weeks we are doing also a spectrum, workshops on a spectrum. Consultation on spectrum with our member states, and how we can utilize the digital dividends, and also beyond that, was we can do on 5G and what (?) when it comes to 5G and what it is.
Thank you very much.
>> MARILYN CADE: Thank you. Marilyn speaking.
What I would like to do now is move us to our second topic, which is digital accessibility. And, what I'm going to do is ask Dr. Azizi, which is the Chairman of the African Regulatory Authority to kick this segment off, but also ask each of you, in addition to the comments that you're going to make, to take a version of that first question. We asked the other speakers to tell us what they thought digital inclusion was. So, tell us what you think digital accessibility is and I'll give you an additional 30-second bonus to do that. (Laughter)
>> DR. MOHAMMAD NAJEEB AZIZI: Good day everybody. Such a pleasure to attend the IGF, because normally when I go to these events it's all state representatives were speaking, and I feel that I'm brave enough that I'm sitting between ten people and I'm the only one representing the government. (Laughter). It's okay.
Now, digital inclusion, we can have many interpretations for that, however, at the end of the day we will all come to one result that we really want everybody to take advantage of the ICT technologies in order to improve their living conditions. If it is the corporations or it is the Civil Society, or the states, we all believe in the same agenda.
Now, one thing as a member of the government, it is very difficult for me to work within the government with the other ministries to promote the idea on why ICTs should be a component in their budget.
My job as the regulator is the normal regulatory development, but then at the same time manage the universal services fund, the spectrum, and above all t losses that it is a responsibility of the regulators to ensure universal access within the Country.
So, what I have come to know is that it's very important that we educate our counterparts within the government. The different ministries on the importance of the ICT in terms of the deliveries that what sort of impact ICT has made elsewhere, you have to repeat yourself time and again in order to make sure that they understand it. Okay. We are talking about improvement of the health services through telemedicine, e-Health, and how we are going to change the behavior of (?) and the behaviors of the professionals who are working with this sector.
Likewise, it is very important to make it clear to the ministry of (?) treasury, the economic policy division that the legislature has made it clear there is a positive correlation between connectivity, accessibility, and the economic growth, both in terms of the economic development and also the per capita economic growth.
So, after giving this a brief introduction, what is important for me is that we have to think about the affordability, because affordability is the cost of access. If we are serious in this business and we want the universal inclusion of all the populations and connecting the next four billion people and connecting the un connect, then it is very important to see for me as a policy maker and then also for all the colleagues from their own perspectives that how we can make the services affordable to people. Because, especially coming from an LDC and from a land law Country, it is very important.
So, one of the things that is coming to my mind is the infrastructure sharing and the co-location, because this good because of the operators massively, and then wouldn't it the public sector with a number of very small things, but very critical and important ones, like if a public works making the roads, that is available for the fiber. We already heard from the colleague from (?) that yes, digging out and doing the cable is probably 90 percent of the cost of the infrastructure development when it comes to fiber. So, if the ducts are already available, then it means that we have already minimized the cost by 90 percent.
Promotion of the Wi-Fi spots. It's immense. I would love if you could give me my last minute when it comes
>> MARILYN CADE: Please.
>> DR. MOHAMMAD NAJEEB AZIZI: Good. Thank you. So, it is important that we work together. This multistakeholder approach needs to be in practice. If I, the government, do not work with the private sector, we are not going to achieve anything. We are the key, however, we can only give the political commitment, we can only make the environment conducive for businesses. The next (?) comes to the private sector and then also the non-profit sector that they have to play an important role.
Business, as usual, cannot give us the results that we are looking at. We have to be innovative with our policies. Again, I'm talking that not only the states have to be innovative, but the partners have to be innovative with the business models. Sitting at our comfort zones will only make more troubles.
Now, specifically I would like to give one example on the promotion of accessibility. As part of the universal access I'm also working with the disabled community of (?). We have recently established an advisory group, and I can tell you that it is an inspirational group where we have representatives of the people with disability, the Civil Society, academia and then also the government agencies that are relevant to this task. We are not doing much, however, I could see the result that it is absolutely amazing. We are getting aware in regards to the needs of the disabled community in Afghanistan. By the way, almost 3 million people out of 30 million people in Afghanistan are disabled.
So, we are very helpful that it will help us with improved policies and it will help us to find out what sort of assistive technologies are available in order to improve the standard of living of these people.
The last thing that I would like to mention is that this group has inspired so much that in our five years of strategic plan for the ICT sector we have got a whole chapter on how ICTs could improve the living standards of the disabled community.
Thank you.
>> MARILYN CADE: I have to explain that I'm particularly partial to Afghanistan, because I have been invited twice to come to the IGF Afghanistan, and the chairman has been especially supportive of a very broad and inclusive initiative, including participating as part of the -- with his staff as part of the organizing committee, some other representatives here as well, and just because I get to plug the national IGF Afganistan IGF is the only IGF that has a kids academy, children six through 11, and if you think briefing your CEO or your ministry is scary, try briefing kids six through 11. (Laughter).
I turn it to you to introduce --
>> Thank you, Marilyn. Our next speaker is going to be Ms. Das. She is head of public policy at Facebook in India. Ms. Das, you have an exciting space. A billion people. Facebook has two billion people on -- in the world.
Could you share with us your thoughts? Thank you.
>> Ankhi Das: Thank you. I thank you for inviting me to the main session and I am grateful for Marilyn's question in terms of reflecting for the first 30 seconds in terms of what I think about the topic at hand, which is accessibility. And, to me it is deeply personal, because my nephew is a nonverbal autistic child, and I've seen firsthand the role which technology plays in terms of making sure that -- I don't consider these to be disabilities, I consider these to be cognitive differences. And, the role which technology plays in terms of harnessing and enabling gaps.
I think more than the activities of any one particular company, I think it's very important for us to wrap our heads around learning needs with people with cognitive differences have, and I think that is the center of framing which we must consider. So, that said, I do want to talk about the things which we, as a company, as Facebook, are doing.
We have made huge investments in terms of looking at people with hearing impairment, also with a visual impairment, and also sort of virtual blindness, as well, and in doing that, what we focused on is making investments on video captioning, particularly to address the needs of people with hearing impairment. We've also looked everybody on this sort of table and in this forum is aware of the rule of screen readers in terms of making sure that that people with visual impairment have the abilities to engage with different types of content online and also develop skills. And, what we have done is working with our engineering employees as well as working with other partners in academic institutions, developed automatic alternative text formats, which helps people with visual impairment in terms of, again, engaging with important content and also developing life skills.
We found on the video captioning, particularly with people with hearing impairment, that to be a very useful technology innovation to help people who have these limitations. In addition, like I said, this is beyond the capability of -- it's just not one company's issue, it is a horizontal team which has to engage a variety of ecosystems stakeholders.
We are proud to support the teach access initiative, which is as you know, is supported by a variety of firms in the technology sector, as well as it has participation from Stanford, MIT, Georgia tech. I think as our engineering sciences treat accessibility as a horizontal team and this comes into play in terms of the design dynamic, you will see more steps being taken by companies as well as steps being taken by academic institutions and engineering graduates to create innovations which help in Maine streaming some of these cognitive differences which we have in our societies.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you. Our next speaker is going to be Dr. Carlos from the ICP sharing about the community networks in South Africa, more importantly the benefits and challenges around setting up.
Thank you.
>> Dr. Carlos Rey Moreno: Thank you for the opportunity. So far I haven't heard about the statistics and about what is happening and for me accessibility is for me to be able to access. Only in Africa today there are more than 250 million people that don't have access to basic telephone. There is more than 500 million people that don't have access to broadband. So, that's access. Access to the signal, not even able to get on once they have the signal. Those that have the signal is around total is around one billion people that are out of line. For several reasons. One is access, another one affordability.
The broadband commission has set up this target that these people should be able to access one gigabyte of data to another with disposable income. On average in Africa at the moment to pay one gigabyte, they need to spend 20% of their disposable income, and that is an average. Some African cup trees are very unequal. So, imagine those with low incomes are able to need to spend to pay that 1 big au bite.
In that context, many of the African government are discussing about the (?) receive row solution, things about VR, IoT, it's about all these things. How that's going to contribute to a society that isn't connected, that is un affordable for many to actually use those services, I don't know. I think the focus should be more on extending access and connectivity to these areas.
I believe (?) he came back and he said, well, industry is more interesting than connecting toilets than in connecting people. And, that's what is happening. So, we have seen this happening. The GSA reports last month, two months ago, that statistics that I was mentioning, they are (?) 8 percent by 2025. So, the division are plat towing. The traditional models don't have the solutions actually to connect them connected.
And, we need to, I'm very happy of everything that they have done representatives, very surprised to hear government saying we need -- we definitely need to think outside the box. And, one of those outside the box solutions are community networks are actually communities and groups of people are organizing themselves to actually set up the tele communications infrastructure that they need to make their communication needs. And, there are several around the world. Just as a report for 43 countries explaining these initiatives.
They do Wi-Fi networks, they put fiber. It is like a whole range, like communities organizing themselves to make that you are own issues can be very powerful. And, actually, as the African Union mentioned, it is starting to get recognized. I mean, working with the African Union, east African community, working with the Slavic community and those policy makers are starting to recognize that there is a need for these other motives to be understood and to be allocated inside their policies, because the policies at the moment are only conducive to traditional models. This other community network have actually succeeded in spite of any support from financial instruments, so imagine what could happen if there would be more support and more enabling environment, and some of them have mentioned representative from Afghanistan, there are resources that are from TV wide spaces to GS spectrum, to LP spectrum, to dots, to towers, to fiber that are there.
What do we think outside this profitable market-driven economy that is failing to connect and connected and we start sharing and start thinking about social development and we start thinking about what does it mean to have 40 percent of your population unconnected. Where are we going doing that? What type of society are we creating? Can we not do things differently to make things happen? So, yeah, I think I'm going to leave it there.
Thank you.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: We're going to have our final speaker from Microsoft.
Bunmi, thank you so much.
>> BUNMI DUROWOJU: Hi everybody. So, I am Bunmi Durowoju from Microsoft, a senior business manager developer and I do business for our emerging markets team focusing on AI and the intelligent Cloud. I also do business development work for our affordable access initiative.
I want to tell you a little bit about myself, and then it will hopefully bring some of my comments into context.
I'm a mother of four. I have children ranging from 19 to six. I am a proud West African West Londoner, as you can hear from the accent. Yes, thank you. (Laughter). And, my work looks at strategic partnerships in the emerging markets, but also while I sit in the UK, I'm also looking at partnerships. I've been driven from around Europe into the markets.
In this charmed world that I live in I do sit in a lot of tables, around a lot of tables. These tables range, I give you a day in lie life. From being in Nigeria and speaking to regulate terse trying to get them to do something in a TV white space area, from having a meeting with my colleagues in the air band initiative where we are really looking to helpfully connect the unconnected and having meetings with my colleague here at this side. And, also going to Nigeria and driving emerging technologies, technologies that really are at the cutting edge where I can see is going to make a real difference to communities and to real countries. And, then going home and dealing with my kids. And, looking at how technology (?) them.
Finally, from a young old-ish looking person that you may be looking at, remember the time that I used to speak to my grandma and try to speak to my grandma on the phone calling somebody, they're running off to go and get her, calling her, she's coming back, she's pick up the phone, to now we are going to Nigeria, going to place necessary Africa and people have got three mobile phones in their pockets and my Aunties are asking me to get them an iPad. So, this is the world that we're living in while I'm sitting at Microsoft.
And, when we look at really Microsoft mission, which is to empower every person, everything organization on the planet to achieve more, the requirement foreign clues significant it tee and the requirement for accessibility is clearly obvious. We will not be able to achieve that mission without us looking into what is happening here.
And, also, from the premise, clearly from where I work, I have to believe, and I do believe that technology is going to be the enabler for a bunch of things to go on. We've discussed this now. But, in this new world, and in a time that we are at now, understand technology is not only the enabler, but also technology is something that we just really have to deal with kid gloves and be really responsible about.
Carlos has just mentioned here really the fact that we're looking at IoT, AI, looking at these new technologies, and actually the speed of innovation is really overtaking the speed of our solutioning. And, this is where we need to really start thinking about.
I can be going in and talking about blockchain and you can talk about blockchain and agrotech and I can talk about connecting everybody, but if we haven't got our policies and have not got a speedy conversation to ensure that our regulations are keeping up with the innovation, this divide, this whole beautiful notion of inclusivity and accessibility is going to be a bit of a pipe dream.
So, one of the things that I do want to talk about is the speed. And, I say that really clearly as somebody who spent a whole year speaking to a regulator trying to get them to have a regular meeting to pool and at least discuss the notion of bringing cheap affordable connectivities into their Country. It could not take us one year to pull a meeting, it could not do that. Wherever I sit, whatever we're talking about, if we're talking about technology, it cannot take one year for an institution to have a meeting to have the discussion.
Also, we're talking about the notion of thinking out of the box. And, again, this idea of thinking out of the box to me -- how much have I got? I'm being a good girl here.
>> MARILYN CADE: You have 30 seconds.
>> I doc this. Speaking out of the box is about the convergence of connectivity. Very quickly here on this table, talking about accessibility and inclusivity. Let's think about the technology is already there for accessibility. We have CNAI, soundscape, we've got all these wonderful captioning things. We're talking about those technologies for the use of those with disabilities, however, why can't we use those same technologies for those who have not got the access due to their digital literacy limitations. And, these are kind of things that we have a bunch of people out there thinking about, but they need time, they need resource, they need support, and this is the kind of thing that is going to accelerate this conversation. We need to accelerate.
>> MARILYN CADE: Well, I have good news for the audience. Our experts have been so time efficient that your job now, and your opportunity, is to start writing down your one-minute questions, and while you're doing that, I'm going to turn to Paul, our third moderator, and ask him if he wants to pose any thought questions to our experts before we move to gathering questions from our audience and remote participants.
Paul?
>> Paul Rowney: Thank you, Marilyn. Paul Rowney for the record. I would like to pose a question to Mohamed and Adilf, I may. One of the big questions we face I live in Africa, it is not technology, it is the record frameworks. How do we effect the regulatory changes that we need to bring about digital inclusion in Africa? We're not going to achieve digital inclusion just through 5G, but through community networks, licensing spectrum, inclusive licensing, allocation and re-allocation and technologies, like TV white space. So, I pose that question.
Thank you.
>> MARILYN CADE: The good news is you both get to think about it, because we're going to take questions and line them all up.
So, let's start with questions that focus on digital inclusion, and let me mention to you guys that we have a very bright light in front of us, and we can't see you. So, you have two spirit guides, you have Zena and you have wisdom, who I'm going to ask to be in the aisle. Wave your hand and then we'll be able to recognize you. So, they're just to make sure we see you.
So, I see one gentleman here. Let me just take a queue. Mary, I'm not going to make you first. (Laughter). I have one, two, three, four, five, six so far. Okay. I hope I remember the order.
Let's start with you, and remember, we're just taking questions and then we're going to group them and answer them.
Please.
>> Audience: Thank you.
>> MARILYN CADE: Please say your name and who you're with, if you are with an organization. But it would also be great if you don't mind just telling us what Country or region you're from.
>> Audience: Thank you. My name is Don Means (Sp), representing the Partnership for Public Access, to be found at P4PA.net, and thank you for prompting a question in the form of a sentence I've been working on it.
With reporting the integration of three approaches of one, public access facilities like the worlds 2 million plus libraries that is shared trusted local resource that includes training and support, and, two, community networks for bottom up wired and wireless infrastructure, and three, even off line Internet solutions for those difficult remote circumstances represent a comprehensive strategy that could most economically and equitably connect and enable not only the next billion, but the last billion, and the billion in between.
>> MARILYN CADE: I love the question. That's definitely going into our report. And, we're going to get you an answer.
Okay. Let's come back over here. And, yes.
>> Audience: That's me. Good afternoon. My question is for Madam Rubin.
As you know, energy and electricity fall in different authorities in every Country, mostly. And, the design the project separately. Do you have an example of a country where, as you know also the private sector installs fiber? So, do you have an example or a Country that they have come together and worked the way you said it should be, like one time digging and doing the project. Or, do you know if a Country who has intervened, the government intervened, and they got their projects together?
Thank you.
>> Thank you. So, we're going to have the one with -- thank you.
>> Audience: Representing Afghanis Telecom Communication Regulatory Authority. My question is referred to Mr. Shaban. The digital switch over is completed in Africa, so to which mobile technology, the digital will be located and the second question is, what is the most use technology for back hall connectivity in Africa?
>> You may proceed with your question.
>> Audience: Thank you. (?) for the record and I come from Fiji, if I may pose a comment to Dr. Najas from Afghanistan. It was easy to see the correlation from Afghanistan, your Country that is a long-locked country, and the small island states, particularly the Pacific. Same challenges in terms of getting finance -- getting the ministry of finance to prioritize, because it is one thing to have political will from the ICT, but to trickle down into actual tangible initiatives, that's another challenge. Particularly as pertaining to the diverse ministries that exist.
The other one was to the lovely lady from Nigeria. Sorry, from West Africa slash London, Microsoft. Yes. You were talking about speed. I've been trying to get Microsoft to come to my region to the Pacific to do community networks, and I recognize my question was put to me was how can you get the regulators to come on board, and so one of the things that I would like to pose to the moderatetors, if one of the recommendations that would come out of this particular session is to see how we could sinner guys this, obviously this would be recommendations, but to see how we can communicate to the different stakeholder groups and how we can achieve digital inclusion in this particular area.
Thank you, Ms. Cade, Mr. Jordaan and Mr. Rowney.
>> MARILYN CADE: So, we're first of all going to lady in front who raised her hand and then to the gentleman behind you.
>> Audience: Thank you very much. And, thank you the presenters. Quite interesting in fulfilling issues here.
In Nigeria we heard the meeting a (?) only. And, it was IGF, women IGF and digital inclusion. In one of the questions that was asked was how can the ICT manufacturer, or the businesses introduce the devices that the elatrate (Sp) can use to access your access, one. Not only accessing you access government policies, as well, and sell online and also learn, because the language is not their own language. So, should it be a picture or a symbol that will enable them access, not only accessing, they would also sell online.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. Good afternoon to everybody. My name is Agular Fazi (Sp) representing telecom community. My question first to the speaker from Africa. You mentioned that one third of people in Africa have access to the Internet. The main challenge in the spectrum was (?). My question is, do you have plan to launch digital broadcasting, and what timeline has been anticipated to analog (?)? Thank you.
>> Thank you so much. My name is Mary Delcung (Sp), and I'm from Uganda. I work with an organization that provides cross city building for entrepreneurs and women, now I would like to talk about the new wave of let me call it foolishness that is spreading across Africa, which is digital taxes. In my Country the government just passed the social media tax that is limiting the number of people that are getting online. First of all, we don't have enough people online, and now with the digital tax, especially a tax, the number of people that are online have reduced. I work with entrepreneurs that are trying to make the online businesses thrive, but with this tax the (?) of the clients have reviewed and they cannot do anything. What are you (?) youth leaders going to do about this, because we the youth leaders are actually pushing campaigns and trying to fight the government and make them see reason.
Thank you so much.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: We will take three more questions. And, we are going to make this very, very short so that the young man.
>> Audience: Thank you. My name is Vasilis, sorry, from Greece, and community network. When talking about digital inclusion, one cannot separate the cultural aspect of the local communities, and the community networks are unique in the way that incorporate cultural aspects into digital inclusion, because it's that people themselves who are building the infrastructure and the services and the whole technology. So, I would like to ask Ms. Das from Facebook, how does Facebook take into consideration the cultural aspects of local communities when providing these tools that she described about the digital inclusion.
Thank you.
>> General for the council ministers of Lebanon. We have been hearing about digital inclusion and after these debates and questions that would appear that that is a question only for the poor or the Developing Countries or societies, but so we speak a lot about digital inclusion, but what about digital exclusion and not in the poor countries, but in the rich countries. I live in France, speak about digital exclusion, speaking about like France, Switzerland and the U.S. If I'm poor, or if I'm unemployed, or if I'm ill informed, if I'm marginalized, if I am elderly, and I am not used to the Internet in a very highly developed society where we speak about e government, eCommerce, e public service administration, while the Internet becomes a real barrier.
>> Madame, please, you're very nice and you're very democratic, but let us have a democratic discussion. You tenned to abuse of your situation and ask a lot of questions. I've come from far away, I would like a lot of people to dialogue, not to just ask questions. Let me conclude with a question. Thank you.
It's not just digital inclusion, it's also digital exclusion in the rich countries, and even in your Country. We're not going to stop progress. We're not going to go backwards, obviously, but my question is the following: Are there measures to help those people, the unemployed, the elderly, those who are weak, who are outcast for and people for whom the Internet is really a barrier to participation in modern society. If they don't have the economic or financial means, if they don't have a smart phone.
Thank you.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: We will take a last question.
>> Audience: Good morning. My name is Krisa Matthews, from intern au tech from Panama, and it's been mentioned the use of digital technology can contribute for social and economic development, but it should be in a sustainable and inclusive manner. There are gaps in connectivity and eCommerce readiness that implies that the benefits of this (?) are not equally distributed. This is why a multistakeholder dialogue is important.
In this sense, I would like to ask (?) the government steps your Country will be implemented to promote the participation of different communities, the Civil Societies, academia, et cetera in the dialogue to address effectively the different policy issues.
Thank you.
>> MARILYN CADE: And I think we have had somebody standing in line quite a long time. A young woman who is over here.
>> Audience: Can I ask my question? Thank you.
You were talking (Audio cutting in and out) digital inclusion and accessibility, but you didn't talk about Autism, because I have a sister that she has Autism and she use the Internet as a way to develop herself, and as the same way the Internet was in the technology was very important to herself to express to go to college, to start. It was always a very bad -- a very toxic environment for a person in her condition. So, I want to ask about for all of you if you have any observations, what do you think about how can we include these people in a safe environment so they can develop and start themselves without receive hate speech and cyber bullying or being attacked.
So, that is my consideration. Thank you so much.
>> MARILYN CADE: Thank you. And, I think our participant with us from Facebook was actually referring to the kind of cognitive.
So, here is what I'm going to propose. We do not have any specific requests, remote, Paul has been diligent in reminding people. We cannot answer all questions, so here is my proposal to the experts. I would like you each to take two minutes and focus on the questions that were directed to you and that are most pressing, and then if you will agree, we will pull the other questions out from the report and share them with you and then we can, if you can quickly write answers, we can actually append your answers to the report.
So, for we will gather the questions, you will have a chance to answer some, you also have people who may be able to catch you in the halls, but then we'll come back to you and ask you to give a short answer in writing that we can attach to the report.
Okay? And I'm -- since the last question, if you don't mind, I'm going to push it to you first, Ankhi, and then go down the line. Two minutes.
>> Ankhi Das: (?) the teams that I heard, in terms of local relevance, I think the first point was about local relevance and how usable it is for local communities. So, we at Facebook are deeply cognizant of this. I mean, I speak in South Asian woman myself, that means that there is a particular cultural context in the way we engage with the Internet in terms of both the good and the bad. That is something which we are fundamentally cognizant about. We have global teams, both that are (Audio cutting in and out) strong field operations which is representative of the communities that we serve, and that are users are from.
A big part in terms of local nuance, linguistic capability. So, making our service available in multiple languages is a top priority. For instance, in our region, we have created a lot of safety guides and safety material, for instance, and we are working with local community groups over there. Similarly, in Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, there is a huge focus on building language and capability and availability of the local language and working with local import factors such as community groups.
The second point which I heard was concern expressed around the broader team of Internet safety. Speaking specifically about Facebook, I can say that we have reporting buttons on every piece of content and we have reviewers, it's a combination of both technical machine led review and artificial intelligence as well as human reviews, because tone and nuance is very important when you have content take down request which comes to us from two channels, user channels, as well as from government law enforcement agencies. And, in doing those human reviews, we do take language capabilities very clearly as an element, which we look at. We have community standards where we have clearly specified work in speech or expression does not is violating and does not have space on our platform. We conduct a lot of safety education summits all around the world, including in our region. We just did a big South Asia summit just like a couple of weeks back where we had our South Asia community present in the room, and that just gives us a dynamic environment to engage as well as tell our community what their best practices are in terms of keeping yourself safe and also teaching your community. For those who have additional questions, I would encourage that you look at FB.com/safety, it has a lot of relevant material.
Thank you.
>> MARILYN CADE: Thank you. Thank you. Nathalie.
>> NATHALIE VUAILLAT: Thank you very much. So, I'm going to answer the question from Marilyn, but I also heard a suggestion about digital taxis, shippings, and other buyers that eBay is trying to unlock to include everyone.
So, for eBay, definitely the key and locker would be the organization of the regulation and the development of variable post style infrastructure.
By experience, we know that the main barrier for triggering across (?) transaction is definitely customs and shipping. Therefore, our suggestion would be that public authorities would need to encourage the development of ratable for sale infrastructure. Accessible and shipping processes that can be filed by either channel.
In the countries you mention, Marilyn, we know that is the use their mobile as the main device to shop online, and shipping and customs documentation should definitely be accessible to be found through mobile devices.
A (?) structure, as Ankhi just mentioned is key. We can offer the best internal access on network. If we do not have the postal network, there is definitely no point of training in mind would be my answer.
Thank you.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you.
>> You have to stop me.
>> You have two minutes.
>> Okay. So, I think at the supply side, I see a lot of suggestion that we have to do (?) and taxes and like that. The way we see it, I see it has to be a multistakeholder approach. I think service providers, Governments, they have to it is together and so if all of these challenges that we are facing, you know, protecting children online, how we go about that, do we have a platform for children so that we have more access, people accessing the Internet. Relevant content to women, farmers, all the community. It has to be a multistakeholder approach, so we resolve the daily issues and then have more access.
The issue was related to regulatory frameworks, I think it is also a multistakeholder approach, and it has to be coordinated between the different actors and doing work in silos and policy coherence when it comes to the framework.
Public access facilities, I think we spoke about postal offices, and I think if we have -- we are sourcing for a pilot project, two countries by region total ten countries of successful, we are going to scale it up, and most likely we are going to extend it to libraries, as well. So, we have solution for that.
In terms of issues with road, energy. So, we do have a program for infrastructure development in Africa called PIDA which we use integrated approach infrastructure. So, if you are building a road, if you are digging a road, you have to have power lines and also fiber optics. So, it is like a dig one policy that we incorporated.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: You have five seconds.
>> Five seconds.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Yeah.
>> The issue on the switch over, we are planning to do it in Q2 of 2020.Effective participation, we are going to include -- we are going to have training for multistakeholder groups from all member states so that we have more participation in international forum. Thank you.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you. Dr. Azizi.
>> DR. MOHAMMAD NAJEEB AZIZI: Thank you very much. Let me start with the first one that, yes, I do agree that regulations and regulatory works are a problem; however, when it comes to countries (?) we are very open and very acceptable towards technologies, and we are very much trying to make the regulations as friendly as possible, and we take a lot of consultations however cell technology is also a problem for us.
The second thing is the information is an effective use of the universal service funds, and really is a mode of (?). Identification of the licensed bands. These are in instrumental for the development of technologies in any Country, I do agree with that.
In regards to my friend, comments that Fiji has a problem with the ministry of finance, we all have that. And, we have to understand it also, the more funds we request the ministry responses that, okay, you have to help me to generate them. So, we have to keep a balance somewhere and you have to find it.
And for the taxation, I do agree, it is killing the sector. One of the terms that probably I use in every official meeting at my Country at the high (?) level, is that one day the none spectrum of policy makers will (?) we have achieved a lot with taxations, yes, I agree that things will get out of control. To what the comment, the friend said from France, digital inclusion and digital ex include shun. I think yes, we have to start thinking about it. We cannot ignore it forever.
Lastly, what Christina said from Panama, how do we make sure that we get the input from other stakeholders, in particular we the government.
I can tell you one thing I can be proud of but I'm not arrogant about, probably in the whole world I'm the only Minister ranked professional who has no body guards and no secretaries. Anyone can knock on my door and they can come and give their name to me.
(Applause)
>> DR. MOHAMMAD NAJEEB AZIZI: And lastly, we do have a formal consultation processes in well, as place.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Charles, please.
>> Charles Shaban: I will answer your original question, which I heard two other questions related to them. I will concentrate on this in my two minutes, please, which is mainly the social ask cultural barriers, and someone said we need to take, of course, the cultural aspect. And, my reply to this, I think it would be through education and awareness in specific, because we need to teach the people what is the benefit. So, when they know the benefit, they concentrate more on the benefits more than what's wrong with the connecting to the Internet, because this culture is mainly sometimes they don't want women, and even sometimes children and even men not to reach the Internet because they say they will learn bad things, bad political, bad sexual news, et cetera, and it is instead of learning. No, but we can learn from them.
I'll connect this, to be honest, to doctor exclusion. I think government and let's say the multi stakeholders not only the government, I don't want to put everyone in government should reach the areas and even the (?) for example but at the end it is self-decision. If I don't want to learn, nobody will make me learn. Like the example of the young lady Autism, and she used the Internet to learn and help her in the different field. So, even if you reach the people, we give them education awareness, but if the person doesn't want to learn and get into this new age, they will not.
Thank you.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you, Charles.
Ms. Rubin.
>> Thank you. One of the questioners keyed on this one with dig ones or build ones, whatever you call it, but you have different ministries in different silos and how do you get them to talk together, and we just cannot let bureaucracy be an excuse for our failure to progress wisely.
It is absolutely possible to have the level above the different ministries lead in the coordination. Both India and Nigeria have included the (?) ideas, build ones idea and they're national broadband policies. It's already underway in the United States, Arizona, Minnesota, Utah, San Francisco.
In early 2017 the federal communications commission, the FCC established an advisory committee to think about how we can do this better in the United States, and we are re-imagining how to do dig in the US. There is legislation moving through on how to better do that in the US. From the US perspective internationally, we have digital gap act that would make the build once or dig once approach be a core part of our international policy. It has passed the house of representatives twice. Just passed the senates foreign relation committee and waiting passage in the Senate but it is becoming part of they those and our bilateral aid programs to think about how to encourage beneficiary countries to do just that.
That connection is with the question on gender, that Marilyn asked, which is really that none of this progress can be accidental, it has to be really intentional, so if we want to integrate gender, we need to put it into the policy of women at the table when doing the policy design, doing the program design, include gender in the qualitative metrics, and in our evaluation plans. And, that when we're talking about increasing Internet access, we ask the phrase for men and women and children.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you. Bunmi Durowoju.
>> Bunmi Durowoju: Hi, a lot to cover, and let's try. Thank you everybody for those questions, that means you were engaged and listening, which is cool.
So, let me just quickly bounce around some of the points that I wanted to make.
In terms of the comment regarding the public access facilities, when there was a comment about libraries, community access, and off-line cache, I think that whole combination is powerful. I do believe that there is technology, particularly in terms of the off-line problem where we are looking at content on the edge, and when we say content on the edge talking about having off Lincoln tent at the point where there is no connectivity, and then really being able to go back online to update and to update that content. So, there is a lot of conversations from big companies and also from smaller SMEs who are looking at that, and of course the libraries, in terms of their digital content, really important. I think there needs to be a conversation between library content and the publishers, built that is another conversation.
There was a question about that call, and I know it was directed at somebody else, but in terms of back hall, particularly in Africa, yes, we do have the fiber framework, and I know actually there is some conversations about using satellite as back hall. As we know using is a tell light can be costly and be an issue, Carlos is laughing at me right now, that was really an interesting conversation that I had last year and the interesting thing is that the cost of satellite they're trying to use technology to bring it down, it's not necessarily something that we look at, we see TV white space is a good last mile connectivity solution, but again, I bring that up because I think we all have to be brave to think about all the technologies out there to solve this problem. If we just think of one silo technology, and spin around that, we're having issues.
IGF in terms of the women and the digital inclusion. I think I touched upon that and I really want to double down on this whole idea of really thinking about different ways to bring the illiterate in, using the technology that we already have in place. Yes, absolutely, pictorial indications, sound, language, all of that we're already using in the accessibility space. We should also be bringing that over to people who are not able to read and what have you. I've even been starting to look at haptics which is the technology of touch to be able to move stuff around. We have a great example of being connect and such like. So, I do feel that technology can fix what technology has broken, in a sense.
So, also, the digital tax, my sister over there in Uganda, keep up the fight. Keep doing that thing. I think really in that sense, honesty, integrity and really ethics and that's, I've learned that to be something we should all look at. Honesty, integrity and ethics.
The countries that we are seeking to aid, the countries we are seeking to make a difference, they have to be honest about what they're truly trying to achieve. We can go in there every day and try to make a difference, but if we do not have a government who is prepared to honestly sit down at the table and look at the solutions, it makes the battle really, really difficult.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you.
>> The honesty of private companies going into countries, the honesty of people wanting to drive in commercial solutions into the countries, what are your true intentions? So, I could go on, but someone is ticking me here now.
Thank you. Find me later.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you. Dr. Conner, final word from you.
>> I'm going to focus on regulatory frameworks and enabling that. This year I've been engaged (Audio cutting in and out) in Africa. And, I think for me the first revelation is how excited they are into the single paradigm, still that mobile level operators are going to be the one (Audio cutting in and out). So, there is a lot of awareness that needs to take place and I think it is acknowledged by them that traditional universal access is failing, the moment you start the conversation.
Now, what do you do from there? I mean, how do you change that? And I like saying, yes. I think we need to use precisely the spaces that you're opening from the African Union commission and try to show that this is a drastic solution from other partners than just Civil Society or some small operator here and there. Awareness, participating in public submissions, there are a lot of frameworks, and the policy frameworks did actually a lot of input in these in the countries that there are. If other nodes are not putting to the submissions, only contributors are going to be the only one that is are wanting to benefit in a certain way from the telecommunication sector. So, we need to participate more in order to influence those spaces. But, then, once those spaces are open, I think constant support is important. I think there are opportunities to do pilots, opportunities to -- I mean, I think there is a certain trust on established operators because they deliver on whatever they deliver, so I think there needs to be a trust on the regulators to manipulate the trust to them to understand that these models are delivering, that these models are also benefiting the Country in many way and increasing competition, ask they are open to that. Opening the opportunity to build that trust is also important.
Thank you very much.
>> MARILYN CADE: I'm going to explain what we're going to do in the next few minutes. I would like to see quickly just bay a show of hands how many of you are new to the IGF and to the IGF website? Okay.
I just needed to know if I needed to remind you of something. We transcribe, we caption every session, so even if the transcript is not up immediately, it will be posted as quickly as possible. So, when you go back online and you go to the website, you will see in the next few days a posting transcripts available, and that means that you can go back, go on-line, and read through the entire proceedings, and that's very often a useful resource that not everyone knows about.
I made a commitment to all of you that we are going to go through the transcript as the co-moderators, the rapporteur, the organizers, identify the questions and be able -- and have our experts to give us shore answers to add to the report. So, there will be a report which follows a format which we have to turn in within about 24 hours, and then we'll prepare an addendum to try to answer the questions that we are not able to get to.
Let me turn to my colleague to offer the appreciation.
>> ELDRID JORDAAN: Thank you so much. From us, we would just like to thank the organizers, the IGF for the session. Special thanks to each and every speaker on this panel. We appreciate your inputs and your recommendations.
We also would like to thank each and every one of you that has made comments, that has raised questions on the floor, those that are remote, as well, the reporter, as well, thank you so much. We appreciate everything.
Thank you so much.
(Applause)
(Concluded)
>> MARILYN CADE: Our meeting is concluded. Thank you for staying over. We would like to invite Sala as our rapporteur, the three organizers, the panelists and we'll take a photo here in front of the logo.