The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> I would like to welcome you on behalf of the -- I work in the headquarters in Germany and I look very much toord to having an inspiring and hopefully dynamic discussion over the next 60 minutes. I would just like to make a few introductory remarks and then I will take you through the program for the next hour. I think the last decade we to support the service delivery. The approach is like cash transfers or digital approaches to education are now part of many government services. In it open forum we want to talk about the key enabling factor of these new public services which is high quality digital public infrastructure. The thing about our existing shared public infrastructure such as roads and electricity grids but online. That is DPI in a nut shell. We want to discuss the potential of Digital Public Infrastructure with the focus on two aspects.
First, we would want to explore the potential of Digital Public Infrastructure as a basis for resilience, social inclusion and good governance. And second Li we would want to explore the conditions, the actual prerequisites to be met for this potential to be realized. Specifically, with regards to cross-sectional cooperation needed. The core will be the panel discussion and I will introduce your panelists in a very few minutes. Where we will hear perspectives from civil sew tiety, from donor organizations, from country representatives and from civil society. However, before the panel starts we will have the pleasure to receive a keynote speech from Martin Wimmer whoing join us online. Martin is already with us. Are you there?
>> I can hear you, thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Very good. Nice to hear you voice at least. We can't see you, but great to have you. Martin is the chief digital officer at the German Federal Ministry for economic cooperation and development. Before assuming this role -- in another Federal Ministry in Germany which was the federal ministry for the environment. And we see think that you are probably a very excellent keynote speaker for this event because even before this you served for quite some time as a manager in different companies where you also led digit tallization and where you successfully led different campaigns. Martin, welcome to the session. And I think now we are ready to listen to you and we are very much looking forward to you keynote input. The floor is yours.
>> Dear speaker is partner of the around guests it is my pleasure to speak to you today and, of course, I wish I could be in Atdis with you. The circumstances don't allow. My minister is hosting the digital global launch on December 1 in Berlin and you are all invited to join us virtually on Thursday to check out the links on my linkeddin profile or go to digital dot global and find all of the information about the event. The German government recently approved its new digital strategy and the German Federal Ministry for economic cooperation and development helped develop the content of the strategy and was able to contribute valuable experience from its own digitalization programs in the global south. The strategy includes finding to do lists that the federal government is imposing on itself in all policy areas. Every ministry has contributed at least one project to the. And we brought to the table our successful initiative, a multi-stakeholder initiative founded by Germany, Estonia, the ITU and Digital Impact Alliance and the European Commission cofinance discussed the engagements with Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia. The topic of the Internet Governance Forum is resilience sustainability, and the shared future of the world assistive technologies you know and this perfectly fits to the open forums focus on Digital Public Infrastructure.
Let me give you two examples we I feel resilience and dip dip are two sides of the same coin. Let us first look at example from India, a country where 1 point H. billion inhabitants. In 2009, entertain started a bold initiative which give its residents a unique identity. When the COVID 9 pandemic struck, the same infrastructure could be used to deliver financial aid directly and rapidly to residents. Digital ID. And E payment have enormous potential as it allows all people, especially women and other vulnerable groups to profit from public services.
We can certainly reach billions on the smart phones without intermediaries. The user is at the heart of good digital public infrastructure, DPI, putting the human in the center requires standards for safe and secure DPI. A great policy example of Digital Public Infrastructure framework is, of course, the GDPR in Germany.
Let us have a look at the second example. A similar pattern as in India could be observed in Nigeria during the Ebola Pam in 2004, digitally tracing contact stria smart phones in an app was implemented. This tool known today as (?) was used during the COVID 9 pandemic around the world around rolled out even all over Germany. In the great example of veers reverse innovation. The two examples illustrate how Digital Public Infrastructure that has been designed in an open and inclusive way is versatile and increases society resilience. But, there are risks, too.
Do we want to leave topicslike data privacy to the markets? To those big tech companies that only care about profit? Do we want auto cracys to globally spread the model of digital transformation or the model of kittal disinformation where the sole purpose is to sustain control over their citizens?
Or do we want a digital transformation which puts the needs and rights of the individual first?
At the end, this is what social inclusion means. Work for the poor. In rural areas. Women, elderly. Not only for male hipsters and capitalists.
It is a social ecological and feminist digital transformation that the Federal Ministry for economic cooperation and development in Germany propleats globally. Promoted we strive to provide the genuine alternative to auto crattic and hyper capitalistic modes of communication. When listening to the global digitalization community, I have been around from that area for awhile NOW. I noticed that open reusable intraoperable sustainable digital building bloc are the key to success.
The German consideration is the before mentioned initiative. What it overs does not need to new dependencies. On the contrary it will strengthen digital sovereignty and ability to adopt already existing solutions and make their own choices to build the future digital government step.
This is the first global initiative of its kind and develops a global tool box of building blocks for E government services so that is what we are talking about. According to the philosophy these solutions should be built only once and reused by everyone for free. For free. That's also social. In a nut shell, invest in bricks rather than inhouses that allows you to build whatover your people and markets require and matches your needs.
We truly believe that the knowledge that is needed for these kind of building blocks like digital ID, payments, data exchange, is spread all over the world. It is our objective and the community effort to collect these expertise, learn from each other and make it available for all.
We want to build this global community with as many forward thinking digital leaders as possible who are aligned in digital solidarity.
It has been a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you very much for the attention and I wish you, wish us a fruitful discussion.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Martin. I think this was a very important input and thank you for really opening up the topic and giving us the different perspective and also the clear perspective of the German government and in particular your ministry.
And Martin, I think we will now proceed with the discussion. And maybe at a later time in the session you can join us here if possible for another round of questions. I want to introduce now the panel individually when I start asking my questions. And I'm happy to have here actually and I'm looking forward now to the discussion. So we have listened to Martin and we also all know here in the room and maybe also the folks online what the initiative is a little bit about.
And I think now we quant to dig deeper into the question of the relationship of digital public infrastructure and resilience that potential also the issues I have mentioned in my introductory remarks. At first I want to welcome Ms. Nele Leosk. Ambassador At Large for Digital Affairs at Estonia ministry for foreign affairs. We are happy to have you here. As a global leader in digitalization of government services how do you feel as at this timal public infrastructure increased the resilience, social inclusion and good governance in your country? Please.
>> NELE LEOSK: Shall we start?
>> MODERATOR: Short, yes.
>> NELE LEOSK: Thank you so much. And I almost also -- I hope everybody hears -- I'm also very glad to be here together with our partners in Germany and ITU and -- which I believe is not represented here today but definitely here at the event and very much so.
But to answer your question and perhaps actually to introduce the topic of the dill dill I do not know how many of us are aware of the concept because it is a rather new term actual Li. It is not that we have been developing DPI for the past 30 years in Estonia so I would perhaps give a context that would understand why Estonia has been for the past years been the leader in digitalization and how it has also now started to be referred to as one of the countries that has build the Digital Public Infrastructure and also the promoter of the public goods.
So we have to go back in time actually. And 30 years and I'm not going to give the 30 year story of Estonia, digital development, but I am leer for the three days at least and there is Google and many other things that can help. Estonia started to reform the government more or less the same time the (?) was invented in 1993 and was actually allowed to do things differentiatedly. This is also what the Digital Public Infrastructure is about. How we see the society and the Democratic society and what we see the role of government is.
Because it all started with an understanding that the government is there to give and also to share whatever the government is doing. And Of course there is the technological side but more to the technologith is actually how you build your government and also the entire ecosystem together with your partners from private sector but also the public.
And I would say that actually the very first steps were taken in the 90s when the Estonian government put a Lott of emphasis on public information, data, access to data and also the reuse of data.
And, of course, there is a an aspect of efficiency because we have as once the principle which in a way allows to be more efficient so the government doesn't collect one data many times but it aLus loss provide what you were refer together this efficient and services because you need data from different organizations both from private sector and public sector.
And in a way, to support the core principles I guess what Estonia is most famous digital public route is maybe some of you have already heard of (?) which is basically a layer that allows to exchange data between government but also public sector.
So I will say that the role of Digital Public Infrastructure, digital public goods is actually to support the Democratization and good governance. It is not really means in itself to reach good governance. And from that perspective I would also (?) what was also referred to, yes, it looks at the 20-30 years of experience in terms of technology and as was also pointed out by Martin Wimmer it does provide a tool box -- of Gov stack. Data sharing form platform or many other solutions that actually could be quite similar across governments around the world because governments functions do not differ that much. We all need to provide our cities and (?) or give them permits to build houses and so forth.
What is also does is it collects these (?) and practice of 20-30 years and really takes a wider approach and framework to see what it needs to be done to actually make the digitalization work because we all know that it is not about technology. I believe almost every country by now has tried to introduce digital identity or at the city level maybe, at the federal government level, maybe some organization level but we actually do not see so many countries succeeding in putting it into practice.
So we can buy technology, some that have more money buy fancier technology and some that have less money buy not so fancy technology. Some may get it for free perhaps through GovStack but it is ultimately about how you put it to work and for which pressures. So with this, perhaps wider context I'm closing for mow and we can see how the discussion goes.
>> MODERATOR: Definitely. We will get back to you. This was very, very important contribution actually this broader keep of issues to be considered here. I think really are very rich, I think. Thank you so much.
Now I would like to introduce our first online panelist here, Mr. Gautham Ravichander. Happy to have you here. You are the head of strategy at the eGovernment Foundation.
>> GAUTHAM RAVICHANDER: Yes. Can you hear me?
>> MODERATOR: We can hear you. The sound is --
>> GAUTHAM RAVICHANDER: Fantastic. It is a pleasure to be here, everyone.
>> MODERATOR: Get me ask my question and then I think you will be curious to learn from you how the role of organizations like you are coming from in developing digital public infrastructure and if you could give us example and tell us a little bit about projects and how they are actually fostered.
>> GAUTHAM RAVICHANDER: Sure. So -- 19 years ago and there are a variety organizations coming up like us but we are one of the oldest in India in this space. Our mandate was really undertake a similar journey to what GovStack as been aGWOPAed to take and improve the functioning. So we function as a nonprofit organization and we have been set up as a nonprofit organization for a very specific purpose back then it was felt that where India was the access to digital public goods or back then (?) for development was well limited and a lot was really not built for governance. We were created to create those kinds of softwares. Today we key electric there together under the banner of the public good for governance. Why we exist is because by creating this open source public we are -- people are able to work with us to undertake the transmission journeys in a much more effective manner and not get worried about when to lock in and are able to preserve what is the lead to sovereignty. They want systems that work well for them. They know that are under the entire control and so they also know will work at scale. So we exist to build the systems and then to work with governments through advisory through capacity building, through helping them set up the right institutional structures internally and take charge of their own digitalization journey.
And capitalizing ecosystems. Typically speaking in the past we didn't see a lot of ecosystem participation in the complex transformation projects. What would be happening on the ground at programmatic level was quite disconnected from what is happening in the software. And this led to a lot of people not really trusting software.
So organizations like us also worked to act as a bridge between market players, between government agencies and nonprofit actors working on the ground to ensure that all of the inputs that need to come in to make programs work on the ground and services get delivered in the real world to people happen seamlessly because of software works.
Over the past five years what we have taken as a Tran section and kind of interesting because GovStack reached out to us a year ago from building softwares for government how can we recrate platforms to act 80s building blocks that governments did keep reusing in differentiated represent domains and over a period of time have the rebust foundation that allows them to keep inviting Lu also providing good services to people. We exist for the reasons are part of the reason that we are a nonprofit is when you are working with governments it is much easier to actually provide unbiased advice and sometimes also to be able to tell them that if you think of your program in this way you will achieve your abjectives much more effective Li which is a lot harder to do when you are a for profit kind of organization. So we are a nonprofit partners and we are unbiased and we help governments make their digital transformation journeys happen through a combination of software and partnerships.
>> Thank you so much, Martin, for this first remark and I'm sure we will (?). Now I wouldlike to welcome my colleague Ms. Andrea Donath. She is head of program at GovStack initiative. Building the E government services.
Besides this you are already cooperating with partner countries and I think we are ready to hear from you who is there and what are you actually doing on the ground. Please.
>> ANDREA DONATH: Thank you. Also from the BovStack team, very warm welcome to the session to all of you. And actually before I answer there question, regarding what we are actually doing with GovStack and where we are working I wouldlike to emphasize a bit on how does Govstack work. It is definitely a novel approach and (?) sales delivery. We are well aware that every country is different. And so it is also the status of digitalization and the digitalization journey in each country. That means we need to make tailor made approaches and all of of the (?) are demand based on the situation in the country. And we operate as GovStack initiative whole together with Delaware from ITU in and Estonia in a user centric manner and we are co-Cree rating activities deeply on the parter in needs in any direction. The partner countries for now are Egypt, Ukraine and Rwanda and also the Horn of Africa which is cofinanced by the European Commission and here we are working together with Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya.
So there are actually three ways to work with us as the GovStack initiative. First you can use as a partner country the GovStack initiative. As a partner country you can make use of the building blocks that we are developing at both the national stack and to also adjust your existing digital ecosystem.
One example for this is in Rwanda as you know, Rwanda is doing very well when it comes to the digitalization of government. They are running their E (?) platform and also in this year's report of the UN the 2020Egov report now stated as one of the high developed digitalized countries. With Rwanda we are sitting together with working groups and workshops and Rwanda and delegates identified the GovStack initiative and what we have specified here as use also for Govstack and they are interested in the building block of concept management and last week took place workshop together with ITU and delegates from the Ruan Dan ministry of digitalization in order to look into Horthy can improve the management of the EU waste management system.
So secondly, what you can also how can you also work with us as the GovStack enishtive is you can engage in one of or join one of our community strucks giving an example here we are working together with more than over 60 -- 70 experts and more than 15 working groups and this is technically working groups that are working on specifying our building blocks and yeah, this is like one example how you can actively also participate in building stack here.
And third Li, you can contribute to the GovStack sandbox or to the sandbox tool box we are developing and that means that countries can provide and should provide the national digital tools to the GovStack initiative and this is what brings the initiative further as well and it definitely needed. One example forthis is the cooperation with Ukraine. Ukraine is our latest partner to join the interrive and we are signing the declaration and intent of cooperation first of December this week so we are happy for N. Ukraine is a very good example for the government of president that put a lot of effort and budget in digit tallizing the state in the last two years and put a lot of efforts in the digital infrastructure and also into DPI.
And through this, they now have the ability to stay in contact with their population and provide basic services via the DRF or the birth registration and even in times of crisis and, yeah. I think in this case we can definitely see in the case of Ukraine that it at the R. perfect Li demonstrates and also sadly but nicely consequent investment and high quality infrastructure systems that definitely strengthen the resilience in times of crisis. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Andrea. I think you really put a lot of flesh to the bone. I think we understand much better now what the initiative means in practice and in practical terms and thank you also for referring to the case of the Ukraine.
Neck I would like to Indonesia deuce professor Josef Noll. From your experience as a research were and advocate for global digital equity how do we enslur that digital public infrastructure as we imagine it actual Li takes hold in emerging economies? So do we actually gain momentum? And if so, how? And how do we ensure user centricity and inclusiveness. Please.
>> JOSEF NOLL: I would love to bring us back to the internet. When it came to Norway building in June of 973, is it was really driven by academics. And what I'm asking myself when we work here with communities in 14 countries in Africa, is can we translate the rest of the approach that we have for the internet towards emerging economies. I concentrate here in Africa because that is where I put my feet around and where I am know how rural Africa looks like. And two points. One point is in our western tradition we all pay for the access. We pay for the fixed access for the internet in our homes. We pay for the mobile access and those packages together like in Norway for me it is around $56. For Nele in Estonia it is $20 and includes access every month. The first one is the payment and this has resulted in that the model of the cloud, the model of the data centers of the centralized data centers works.
Now the second point and we in the emerging economies it simply means that here in Africa the distances are so big, the infrastructures are so costly that we can't put a fiber to space stations simply because it's pure Li from the size of Africa, it is not possible. And second, we don't have the economy to actually pay our 20, 40, $60 for the access.
And these both points for me put the big question out saying no, the model of the internet as we have it in Europe or in the rest of the economies is not the model which we can translate. And when I come to back to India, I love the discussion with the saying that well, you know, $2.50 per month for 125 gigabyte per day is the cost you pay. $2.50 per month for 1.5 gigabyte. I asked where do you finance. He said look the money is not in the access. But we built an internet where the money is in the access.
I'm asking also can that actually work? Or do we need to revisit like when we discuss here in -- with the held of Vodacom foundation she says 75 to 80% of the connections to the internet are from 2G. 75 to 80%.
Which means only like 20 to 25% at 3G or 4G based are internet access enabled phones. The rest is just -- that simply means that when you talk about the digital public infrastructures we don't stand a chance with the current model to bring it across. And if we then say we want the free access which was country -- recall, one of us said it, then how can we establish that? Do we have is to think differently? Do we have from the university point of view, do we have to teach the universities to connect schools and build women empowerment ports in each and every victim language? This is -- this is just the kind of thought which I wanted to bring into the room, into the room. We don't have an answer yet. But that is weather I would love to discuss here further.
>> MODERATOR: Wonderful. Think this was real Li a very important aspect you have added here to the description, the price to the access to the internet and role of companies and maybe other business models and the involvement of the education sector to enlarge access to internet in particular for certain groups of the population. Thank you so much, I would now invite a all of you to ask questions to contribute. I think we are also ready to continue the discussion here. But I would want to open it up now and to make sure that you can also as we have said, it is an open forum and we should use it to raise question and to try to discuss it. I don't know whether there is already questions now in the room. Isth any? Please, go ahead.
>> AUDIENCE: Hi. Yes. Thank you very much. My name is Troy March cuss. A German digital consultant based in Estonia so very much inspired by the Estonia tonian way of thinking. I have a question to the two Lai did Is on the panel. In terms of driving digitalization threw GovStack it seems it is nation based one country as a time which is understandable. Do you see a cross border as well if we say there are two countries in Africa or elsewhere that say we don't have the internet right now but we both want one and we know there is collaboration and trade going on between the countries why don't we step to the plate at the same time? Could you see somethinglike that happen as well. Or o hue do you see the engagement model develop over the coming years.
>> MODERATOR: If you alie, two more questions. One questionth.
>> AUDIENCE: My name is (?) from Cambodia. And recently we just set up the digital 2035 and also in Cambodia and also connecting to the digital (?). My question is about the option in Cambodia and also question about the state continually using the technology currently and is the GovStack also set the environment for the (?) services and also (?) the exchanges in the (?) technology. So already on the -- the changes in (?) how can they -- to the GovStack. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Do you want to answer to all of them.
>> AUDIENCE: The first question the option of GovStack in Cambodia maybe to Andrea.
>> MODERATOR: And then maybe I invite you to answer the two questions in the room.
>> NELE LEOSK: Thank you. I will start with (?). Nice to have you here also. Think what you are actually already may be happening in a way.
Everybody can contribute to GovStack. But perhapses to go back why GovStack was born. Back was in a way born after -- GovStack was born after 20-30 years into practice of digitalization realizing some tools that we might need and some functionalities that we have across governments across the world are similar despite our differences also.
And how it wores is it has sort of identified certain let's say components we all might need. Ridge stray forbusinesses and registry identity and collects the existing practice from public and private sector across the world trying at least to find this balance between different players that have established themselves in this world series.
But very recently for example we have a partnership agreement signed with Egypt and their motivation is not, of course, only to let's say adhere to some GovStack principles because GovStack itself does not implement any of these solutions but also to contribute. Contribute. So everybody can contribute, of course, there is a certain process to make sure it all goes how we -- how it should go. But perhaps to just to comment at your question about the (?). It is, indeed, a public corridor that is currently maintained by Estonia n and Finnich and Icelandic governments have, it is not so much about money even. Let's say data scientists. We all lack data scientists. What Estonia has done is pooled resources with Finland and Iceland so we have the community of all three countries maintaining load which has become I would say a core component of our critical infrastructure.
And I think this is something that at least we would like to see more that we pool resources also across government.
We have been talking about a lot but I do not actually see that much in practice yet. Not even within the European Union where we actually share common aims and we all need to reach a certain level of digitalization. Perhaps this is something that GovStack might actually look into to facilitate there sharing of resources across different partners. We haven't done it yet but it is maybe something we should look into. Already.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Nele. Andrea?
>> ANDREA DONATH: Thank you both for the questions. Like first of all, I would also like to say like the initiative is still quite young from my perspective, right. So we are commissioned by from the German side (?) implementing GovStack from the countries I mentioned which is 25 right now. So we have some time to go and the status quo is that we are still in defining the building blocks and what we are trying to do -- not trying, actual Li doing it building the tool box and sandbox. What do we mean? Like a test and pilot environment where we can make it much better accessible and much better possible to test and to demonstrate how the GovStack can actually fit and products can fit into the existing country environments and infrastructures.
And so also like not taking the question first, Cambodia, I think then we can say we are happy to any conversation in this direction with any state and as mentioned we are not alone with partners Estonia and also the ITU which have also their arms in many countries and we are, of course, happy to get in touch with you in order to have an initially conversation about what is your interest in and also to dive deep near like more technical questions let's say. And but still at the end of the day we are then commissioned as GSH from the ministry forother countries and all of the steps for way sis for discussion but we are also looking into the situation that also countries provide their own tools and projects into the tool box that the GovStack is developing. And we are very happy to, yeah, get in touch and, yeah, maybe we can have a conversation and change cards afterwards.
Also from your perspective I would like to make maybe use of the situation and the situation that we have more people in the room from the GovStack team and also from the Horn of Africa initiative andlike our colleague from Kenya and in my understanding and I hope I got this right because as you justled I just took over this position like a month ago but you asked for do actually different countries look into several let's say building blocks in order to exchange and digitalize in a faster way. From my perspective we are doing this with the Horn of Africa initiative and this is where we also get commissioned by cofinanced by the European Commission commission to get the economic situation and transference from the countries much better. By doing this maybe would you like to if youster two for sentences for us in order to let us know what is happening there and maybe can answer this question better than I do. Thank you.
>> STEPHEN ODHIAMBO: Thank you so much, Andrea. My name is Steve, I'm with the -- I sit on the Horn of Africa, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti. Just a few word there's. We are engaging the three countries and in the gentlemans if question there about cross border trade and similar activities. So what is happening is we can Have country codesign sessions or calls where we engage the countries individually and try to identify use cases that can be piloted in the sandbox environment. However, one of our objectives or mandates as an overarching objective is regional cohesion. To identify use cases or services that can work or foster a regional cohesion.
So cross border trade is one of those services. However, when we go into the countries, we do realize they are at very different levels of where it is technological readiness or even just infrastructure, connectivity, digital capacities and so on.
So what we do as an initiative this is an early stage. We go into the countries and get them with are they are. The cohesion activities put them at a second level so we try to tackle is what is most foundational and basic and once we have the foundation we can branch out. Thank.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We have four more hands and then I would invite all of our panelists to make some closing remark is and to answer hopefully some of those questions. Start with the lady here.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you Vero Beach. Kristine from the minister of foreign affairs of Norway. It is interest together hear about the GovStack Initiative. Our state secretary is going to join the Hillel event that Germany is hosting on the first of December and she will say more about it.
Norway had took the initiative to follow up the UN secretary general high level panel on digital cooperation and took the initiative together with UNICEF to establish the alliance with GovStack. It has been growing and I'm happy to have Estonia and Germany and several other partners on board. The Digital Public Infrastructure alliance is working more broadly Han the GovStack because GovStack is focused on public digital infrastructure but the alliance is also working on with the public infrastructure in this area and not at least the digital ID or modular open source eye den fit platform but a lot of countries now are signing up for including Ethiopia. My question is how do you see the digital public goods appliance work in relation to the GovStack Initiative when it comes to coordination. I mean the -- the alliance of public goods digital public goods is pretty much very are very operational also. They are rolling out and financing and technical assistance at the country level in various sectors and we have the Norwegian side have provided a lot of digital public goods into the alliance. For instance the health information system that is now in use in more than 70 countries around the globe.
Because we have to find a really good division of labor, of course, between the initiative we have to coordinate. We have are very persistent from the Norwegian side a avoid fragmentation and competing initiatives. I'm not saying that GovStack is that but also in sigh Lows -- Breckin down the silos we are happy to have the U.S., the Americans more clothes to us now in the alliance with I is an important actor in the area. If you have thoughts on how GovStack and the alliance for digital public goods could work.
>> MODERATOR: Would we will try to manage time.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm (?) I'm heading the -- I have a comment and a question. So I'm on the observation that also about the connectivity and access in general and in Rwanda and the example was given as what they managed was basically setting up a network of agents who had access and then basically providing through this access through millions of citizens.
I think this is a very important observation also to the same issue that a lot of digital government is not about technology.
So my question actually also which which direction that GovStack as an initiative should provid when it is not particularly about technology but still about the stack that is obviously a lot about technology but many of what we probably need to provide and discuss is also how this actually can we give access for citizens and how it changes in situations et cetera. The question is how to come to this kind of service buffer.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you. And the lady overth.
>> AUDIENCE: My question is a follow on on the question that you raised. So really appreciate you acknowledging that this isn't necessarily a technical question. It is how the technology is used. I'm Caroline with access now a global digital rights organization. We have seenth are benefits from the rollout of digitalization and digital identity systems and other related projects. But we have also seen that this often can amplify disparity and intensify abuses already happening. This thinking about the design of the GovStack tools and talking about resilience to what extent designing the tools in a way that is resilient to oversoutheasterning surveillance or with communities aggregatorred withdowns for moving people into a more digital space but they are already facing discrimination in other ways, how is this system going to support them in overcoming the challenges?
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. And I probably have to close the round of questions here because otherwise we won't have time to answer the questions.
I want to invite the panelists to give the final statement. Josef, please.
>> JOSEF NOLL: Thanks. Currently -- because what we have seen is that the decentralized structure of the internet routing can actually be transformed and I want to pick up Andrea what you talked about because we have seen now in the (?) building 4,000 I call them info spots where people can come and they have warmth and they can charge their phones and they have internet access. This model is probably a model which we could bring further out or which we should think about bringing further out.
And when we talk about GovStack the question is what degree can we make GovStack distribute it, you talked I mean sorry, we talked about the agents and the story is that we need to have a slim GovStack to actually achieve the services because in the areas we can't assume that we have a growth in connectivity. And like towards what we discussed a lot is the digital public goods and GovStack as a resuppose Tori as something different from having them in use by the community. And that is I think the challenge which we all have now in the upcoming years.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Josef. Gautham over to you again. Maybe you have thoughts to share to reflect on the questions. Please.
>> GAUTHAM RAVICHANDER: I think the whole connotation on internet connectivity and even access is a question to think about. In our experience we really have seen that we cannot even -- we cannot start with let's build it and everyone will be able to access it. We believe if the process where you have both interhe Mead access as well as digital access and intermediate access is required for people who might not be comfortable with technology and might not be comfortable with (?) by default in our program design we do advocate strongly for governments o ensureth is multiple channels of access and teen ensure that each of Channels is treated on part. Whether it is online or weather it is a chat bot or whether it is actually someone calling in on a phone call.
Or someone walking up to a counter at a government office or possibly even in a self-help group. In fact, in that particular instance I would actually say what we should also be thinking about is what are the operating models that GovStack can give countries that can then be relievaged. In India, for example, Google created the internet (?) who were women who psyched around villages and started teaching other women to become digitally lit rate. We are seeing in some of the low join some neighborhoods and cities self-help groups play a strong role in connecting communities to government. And because of the role what they are also able to do is minimize some of the discrimination that were otherwise prevent people from accessing services.
To the question that got raised about how do we watch out or amplification of disparities and reinforcing discrimination, I think it comes back down to the cha the around access to services which should have equal access and equality of access written in.
And similarly, we should also be looking at which services and what sequence are getting digitized. It should alarm us if it is primarily law enforcement that is getting digitized from day one as opposed to public services being delivered to citizens. Having the conversations about sequencing your different services in a way that you're promoting citizen benefit and minimizing government overreach is critical to all of these pieces and we should try to ask GovStack to include that in the play books created. This is knot an option but a requirement, the ability to figure out offline information can be captured and then synced N. online later and how people are able to leverage simpler thinner clients Ob their phones and sometimes even how this can be done in an asynchronous manner so people and phones can get synchronized online later. We believe that the current set of systems we are looking at need to be' evolved to meet the requirement. I will pauseth and hand back to you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Andrea, over to you. One minute only, unfortunately.
>> ANDREA DONATH: , that's pretty short.
>> MODERATOR: You will manage.
>> ANDREA DONATH: Regarding the question of digital public goods, I would like to emphasize I feel strongly we are lobbying towards a common theory of change and this is the most important thing and where we are clothes any eat co-system corrected or to coordinate better were make syllabus of the system we also sent a colleague from our (?) if the digital end very happy that we come together much more closely and. Thanks. Due to the reason that I just have one minute and also your question also regarding let's like Lou to extend the digital deindividual in order to come from the technical and product side and to how we actually reach out where we have to end up with our services I would be so happy to start the discussion and I think this is like a great chance that we have also the digital centers in this order to look and Josef and others working on the topics in order to come together as a community and develop how it could look like. Maybe the question is this GovStack or even extended from that but I would be happy to discuss this further. And then to your question on how can we secure that with I think GovStack is an open such an open forum and such an open initiative and open source in order to make the best out of it and to gather all of the expertise we can get on the product and the blocks in the products that we are actually developing. And so we are happy for any sort of participation here in order to make it to the best is just what I can say to this question.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Andrea. The very last minute is for you. Please.
>> NELE LEOSK: Thank you so much. I will start with yours. I completely agree that the products that the GovStack is developing and those that it refers to need to be compliant with certain Democratic principles and also (?). For example the solutions need to be compliant with GDPR and this is our task with GovStack so make thundershower that way. Now how it is going to be actually implemented by different governments or other groups, is (?) GovStack. But around technical (?) so this is actually our (?) that is where the space remains and the environment we want to be in and also to cooperate with access now and the government of Ukraine and the (?) maybe we will address many of these issues.
Assistive technologies to your question solutions such as implementation as you know the solutions only play a teen Ney role but they do play a role. I think we are as GovStack and I think also these countries that we work with, what is saying that we are between the rock and the hard stone here a little bit because, on the one hand, we understand that it takes a long time and it takes sustainability and takes to reach (?) but on the other hand we also immediate quick wins and sometimes it helps if you have some solutions handy and you can at least got the time to develop. But it is definitely an issue and finally the most difficult question to respond around this different in initiatives emerged around the public infrastructure and public good. There were manymore. There is (?). Recent Li UN tech envoy announced there will be an additional (?) to public infrastructure initiative and we definitely see there is more need to bring these different partners together and I am Georgia to GovStack entered the public alliance have worked closely and live is partly responsible for the great cooperation but I personallied a (?) alliance very much because of the clear and open principles on how it functions and how it cooperates with others and we have GovStack also quite the (?) from you. Thank you for this. But whyth are so many public infrastructure initiatives and I think these I guess we can see the new the point for potentiality something that has been around for all of the 20 or 30 years. So I think we need to acknowledge also that digital public infrastructure, the digital public goods is not a new miracle or reality but it is actually the continuation of work that has already been done and with this I'm done within one minute.
>> MODERATOR: Absolutely one minute. The panelists tee serve a -- for a fantastic job really in the initiative is all about. I think you have also highlighted colleges that potential and we have also understood I think the more the history of all of the efforts. And we thank you so much and that you -- (?) for this IGF now. I wish all of you inspiring time at the IGF. I think for those who would like to have more information about the initiative, I think there is a booth somewhere here. Go there and you can discuss with the!
Perts. Enjoy the day and enjoy the week. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.