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.
***
>> MODERATOR: Good morning to everyone. Welcome to all on‑site and online participants. You'll hear a great group of speakers. We have online and on-site today.
We will dedicate a few minutes at the end for direct exchanges. So you can get ready and prepare your questions and remarks.
Digital infrastructure. This is what we're here to talk about today. Digital infrastructure underpins the economy of today. But also, the economy of tomorrow. From broadband network, data centres, cloud services, to protocols extenders that ensure interoperability of tech platforms, services, and system. How digital infrastructure is designed affects the degree to which economic power is concentrated or distributed. How innovation is stifled or encouraged. And prosperity is available to the many or to a few. the stakes have never been higher. Rapid advances in technologies, in particular, generative AI are not only transforming the nature of work in everyday life, but also it is redefining the meaning of sovereignty on the individual level. But also, for communities and countries across the globe. So making data agency is all the more necessary. And Project Liberty Institute we're guided by a north star. Giving people a voice, choice, and stake in the digital life. A technical solution to such a scenario need to be built, scaled, but also, most importantly, adopted.
Our common grounds between the IGF theme this year is "building." Building sustainable and responsible innovation, building digital trust, resilience, and so on. And the good news today is we have many builders around the table. Builders of digital infrastructures, protocols, business models, governance approaches. And all of what we're doing and you'll hear about today resonates with what we call the Fair Data Economy Recommendations. They were developed last November by Project Liberty Institute and the impressive task force. I'll hand over to my colleague, Paul Fehlinger. To kick it off. Paul will be online today.
>> PAUL FEHLINGER: Greetings to all of you. I wish I could be there in person in Norway on this 20th anniversary.
It's a foundational initiative for Project Liberty Institute. The task force launched its recommendations about nine months ago at the project liberty summit that took place in Washington, D.C. And it followed six months of intense international multi stakeholder work. And the Fair Data Economy Task Force is composed of 80 distinguished members spanning all stakeholder groups, international governments, innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, builders of technical infrastructure. As well as leading academics and even the Nobel Prize of economics winner. It spans 10 countries around the world.
As Sarah said in her opening remarks, the current status quo of the digital economy has negative externalities on market structures, on the very fabric of societies, and our democracies. To a large extent, which is linked to the business models and the underpinning infrastructure that enables it on the internet.
And the current status quo is not really great for entrepreneurs. It is not really great for people and users of technology. It's really not great for majority of investors either. So the question is, how could we rewire the data economy? Can we build a better ecosystem that works for all different actors? And how can we build a better data economy where people have agency over their data. That is on firm economic grounds that can scale. So to do this, the task force published its blueprint for innovation and growth across four areas. Next generation, digital infrastructure as a key enabler, business model innovation entrepreneurship, policy innovation, and capital allocation. And they're very pleased that we have in this distinguished panel you'll get to know in a second, two members of the Fair Data Economy Task Force. And we have with us today Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo, the principle advisor to the African Union Commissioner for economic development, trade tour and minerals. He's not online yet. We'll see if he can join us momentarily. I would like to give the floor to Sujith Nair. In many ways they're implementing already in the market an incredible scale in India what the Fair Data Economy Task Force has been talking about in its recommendations, which is business model innovation. Really powered by next generation digital infrastructure.
So, Sujith Nair, I would like to give you the floor. Can you tell us a bit more about the protocol and how it embodies this approach of a Fair Data Economy and what is the role of the infrastructure protocol back in enabling a better data economy?
>> SUJITH NAIR: Thank you, Paul.
So essentially it's an open protocol that embodies interoperability. The idea was to ‑‑ an attempt to reimagine how in an online economy we move value. How we put people, communities and businesses, at the centre of their own sort of economic, social, commercial lives. By giving them agency on how they hold and keep data and share data. But more importantly, translate data into value.
So it fundamentally allows transaction exchange of value. How you express, discover, engage, contract, and fulfill a value between any consumer and provider. As actors, how do you do that? It's an imagination that takes time to make a departure from this incumbent thinking of a platform‑based moment of value.
In fact, what you see with the platforms in marketplaces, as we have seen today, and it's rapid sort of evolution in the last two decades. Is a way for both consumers and providers to be necessarily on the same platform managed by one platform intermediary. And in the discovering and sharing goods and services or any form of value on that platform, you have this model of both having to be on the same platform, as a closed platform, and allowing the value to remain on the platform of a capture of value rather than a free flow of value.
For what we do is fundamentally unlock that agency for any consumer and provider. Could be a taxi driver. We have about half a million taxi drivers in India. Not necessarily on these big ride‑hailing platforms, but use it to aid, discover rights, and service those rights and keep the revenue to themselves. There's no big commissions by the intermediary platforms. There's no such platform using it. It's an open network. What everybody brings their end to this. The drivers have their ownership of the data. Today the drivers have to move from one platform to the other. They don't have access or agency keeping their data or their ride reputation and history and things like that. It allows you to put that data to any other platform and continue from the new platform. Expressing data and services, goods and services, and ability to discover parties who would like to do transactions, business with you, and, therefore, amplify your economic value of the work and the services. At Bekn protocol. How we think about value exchange happens in an online economy.
Paul, back to you.
>> PAUL FEHLINGER: And we're still waiting for Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo to join. I hope he doesn't have major technical problems to connect. But maybe, Sujith Nair, can I ask you the question. What, for you, is the main take away and message to the entire ecosystem and gathered here at the IGF worldwide. The builders, investors, the entrepreneurs, consumers, the policy makers that came out of this intense international multi stakeholderrism work we did together in the Fair Data Economy Task Force.
>> SUJITH NAIR: Yeah. How we have seen agreement on universal principles how we think of Fair Data Economy of the future should operate.
The principles of moving agency to the ends. Allowing, like I said, peoples and business to be in the centre and not the big platforms. And reimagining the possibilities of how we create value. When we take this departure from having these models of lone heroes as big platforms trying to solve problems for all of humanity. But this idea that with these principles, you can distribute that ability to solve. Distribute that agency. And allow everybody to participate in their own way retaining the agency and autonomy. For me, it's something that is fundamental. And it's heartening to see there are protocols like the Bekn protocol, all of them aligning to those principles and visions and bringing them forward. It's a wake‑up call to see how we need to do more beyond the formulations of the principles that put together and put them into practice and drive. Civil Society, market players, policy makers all come and fundamentally think about this as a core central principles of how we think about the evolution of the online economy. And make it contextually relevant to the very needs and cares of different regions. I'm here to have conversations around the whole coming opportunity and the challenge of energy transition and what does it mean to make countries in Africa and India and in Europe sort of build reliable, secure agency and independence as an individual, as an economy. And these are some of the conversations which also fundamentally need to bring aspects of fair data principles into the conversation of how we think about future governance. I'm trying to make an example of energy. It's fundamental it cuts across multiple sectors. Not just some part of digital payments. But more foundational aspects of our society. Like access to energy. So I think it's a very important sort of principles that we must consider in all walks of life. As we become increasingly in our lives.
>> PAUL FEHLINGER: Thank you so much. And all of you at the IGF, you can find the recommendations on the website projectliberty.io. You gave the perfect segue. This is about scaling next‑generation digital infrastructure for economy infrastructure. I want to give it back to Sarah on site in Norway. To continue the discussion and introduce our next speaker.
>> SARAH NICOLE: Thank you very much, Paul.
So you mentioned, actually, Sujith Nair, and thank you for the DSN piece. I'd like to hand it over to Vice President and chief architect of DSPN frequency, so Wes Biggs.
We talked about transparency. We talked about redistributing value. We talked about giving people more power over their data.
It seems that data agency is probably the core component and the common ground that we're talking about today. It seems, also, that data agency is a core architecture principle of the decentralized social networking protocol. So, Wes, could I turn to you to tell the room here in‑person and online how technically does the DSN work? How does it embody this principle of data agency for its almost 2 million users today?
>> WES BIGGS: Thanks, Sarah. And great to see everyone here.
I'm a technology architecture and contributor to DSMP. Consensus seeker, perhaps. It's under an open governance model I think you'll hear more about. And the origin of DSMP is this ‑‑ the realization and I think this is very much tied to the fair data economy piece that the web. 2.0 model that did great things for people. It connected people. But it was mediated by centralized the platforms. And they have been designed and optimized to extract the value of the network effects in the systems created by the participants. It's taking the network effects out of the network and sharing the value between the stakeholders that are participating. We start at the protocol level, the low level, where we want to talk about not applications but how systems can communicate with one another on a fundamental level. That means data and the operations on that data. And how it flows across the connected spaces.
We start with the DSMP that needs to mediate the spaces. And to do that, I'll quote from the specification, to ensure decentralizing DSMP system must appoint having any single point of failure and any entity that can override the consensus mechanisms. It's a term that evolved rapidly over the past decade or so.
Block chains and other systems within that. And it creates a system where no single business, company, computer is in charge of the way the system operates.
Starting with the fundamental principle, we can build things on top of that. Affordances with starting with identity. And something that can be long‑lived for users of social networking services. It can be human friendly. It doesn't have to be a crypto graphic wallet that everyone has to remember their password for. It can be however strong with the systems, crypto graphically to provide control over the data that is attached and accumulated with the identity over time in the public space.
One of the core things that comes quickly after identity is the idea of at the station. The idea of having verified attributes that can be part of one's identity in the social spaces. And that might be professional credentials you know, simply proof of your own humanness versus an AI or Bot. These things can go into the protocol. And then we move to more abstract ideas that underpin the social fabric that we've seen across lots of different applications. But in unconnected ways. And we want to create a universal social graph that can establish connections that are long‑lived outside of the context of one application that can then be imported and used interoperability. That can be your friendships, your connections, your followings on social media. And those are all now relationships that can live on outside the life cycle of any particular application that you use to access your social network. Social content and social media we've seen across the varying and quickly‑evolving in social media. It's not about text or video or anything like that. But a protocol for any of those types of communications that we want to connect our social networks with over time. And, really, overall this comes back to the economic principle that we are allowing with the protocol an innovation of economic models for the applications that participate in the social networking sphere. That can move away then from a focus that drives toward surveillance model. So there's value exchange for the participates involved.
>> SARAH NICOLE: Thank you very much. With Beckn and the DSMP and the others. There are many others existing. These examples exist. So many alternative governance model, technical innovation are available for use. It seems most users are still platforms of the digital economy.
I'll turn it over to Wendy. A DSMP advisor and chair of the DSMP Governance Working Group. You've been thinking about the questions of governance a lot for the last years. How can we bridge all the solutions that are existing somewhere on the ecosystem, but somewhat not scalable enough together. Enough users. What is missing today for this solution to truly collaborate better to represent the scalable alternative to centralized digital economy. Is it something we're doing wrong or still not doing about this?
>> WENDY SELTZER: Thank you very much, Sarah. Thank you to the hosts and everyone here.
It's tempting to answer your question with the universal computer science answer. Take a hard problem, another layer of abstraction, and you'll have the answer. So among all of the existing protocols and places where people are today, you could say add another layer above of an interchange layer. Add standards for data exchange among them. Import and export of data. Make regulation to enforce the availability of those. And you might get there. And there's promising Work in standards development for interoperability. There's promising work from regulators thinking about how to make platforms provide for their end users. For the individuals the ability to take their own data and have control of where they express it. And there's work in cooperation frameworks, governance frameworks to think about what would take to give people confidence that when they took their data from one platform to another, they would be able to preserve the terms they wanted for that. And not just be turning it over to a different terms of control by another proprietary system.
And yet I think we need to look at this as a technosocial challenge. That it's not just a matter of building interoperable tech and the people will come and the solutions will come out of that. It's also a matter of figuring out how we, as society and as builders of ecosystems, will align the incentives so that there are stable configurations that preserve interoperability.
And, you know, one of the values of these multi stakeholder dialogues is as opportunities to find solutions that serve the needs of, you know, the various participants in the ecosystem. It's not enough for, you know, the end users to be supplicants to businesses saying "please give us the data." They should be able to present themselves as customers, collaboratives, as communities on equal footing to say "we bring value to the ecosystem by our participation there, and we will only bring it on terms where we have the privacy that we expect. The autonomy to enforce terms of our choosing."
It is easier to say that than to do that. It requires organizing. Requires cooperation and, you know, it's not as easy for individuals as simply taking an app that is offered to them in the app store and ‑‑ for free, advertising supported ‑‑ and saying "go ahead." It's a matter of building toward a more empowering experience long‑term.
So I think in the work that DSMP is doing, and the work that others are doing to help build empowered end‑user participation in governance, to find cooperation and collaboration. To find cooperation experiences that recognise the value of, you know, commercial incentives. The value of individual autonomy, the value of noncommercial and social interchange, the value ‑‑ the interests of government participation. The interest of technical and scientific development. We can work toward the frameworks that have a longer term, sustainable interoperable data interchange.
>> SARAH NICOLE: So interoperability is a big part of the response to word‑scaling the digital infrastructure that we're talking about. Especially because network effects are really strong out there. And they're probably one of the main reasons why we're not able today to bring most users into technical solution that protects better their data, better their privacy, and so on.
So, Sujith Nair, to what extent does this component of interoperability particularly for you? You've been talking about already millions of users on Beckn. How do you work with that component on top of data agency?
>> SUJITH NAIR: Yes. If you allow me to use the remarks to build on as a way to answer your question interoperability. And interesting idea from Wes. The natural tendency, to think about the abstracting and creating protocols and putting this sort of elaborate formal government structures around the tech protocol idea. And it's one thing, therefore, to do sort of big interoperability as a principle and do the technical designs. I fully echo that. When we started the Beckn Protocol effort as a foundation about five years ago, we had this urge to do sort of build this protocol, build a global community around governance in the protocol and talk about and then think about seeing, "okay, how do we put this in work? And let people see value?" But one of the sort of the early when I think about wise things we could do is not wait for the governance and the protocol to actually take off.
We actually put the idea of interoperability in the hands of people. It's really remarkable that in the early years of Beckn, you don't normally expect taxi drivers to talk about protocols. Yet when we see ‑‑ I got a call, literally got a call from a few taxi drivers from the unions and saying, "we understand the property cool because we live the problem." Not having the part of the interoperability to amplify agency. We are stuck in the ride‑hailing platforms and, you know, they come and onboard us as partners. Now they treat us as if they're a boss and go through what they have to make us go through.
I think for me, the value of Beckn Protocol was to give me that sense of control about where I want to be, how I make myself discoverable as a taxi driver, to a rider in the city, and offer my own terms of price and be fair in that process. And then let me own ability to serve the customer with the ride be the reason why I get recognised for more rides. And build trust as a service provider.
And that idea of that value. Discovering that value with this principles of interoperability, for me, would be the first significant step we should think about. And the interoperability, if for me, has to be seen in the eyes of the holders. Today we kind of expanded that ability to perceive value with the idea from taxi drivers to about 200,000 small mom‑and‑pop shops in India. It's operating in a thousand cities. We have close to 1 million SKUs available from goods and services available on one big massive interoperable network. Think of India's own network and not a platform. And every day we see conversations around how it is unlocking value for people for whom it matters.
We have a small list able to ship products. At a low cost. Things we can talk about customer acquisition, customer transaction services, and, therefore, able to expand their business. We're able to do that. To find a child in the remote part of India. To take an online exam. Discovering financing support. Opportunity to find jobs. One of the things to interoperability think about how we can straddle value in multiple layers and let the users see value.
Most often the perception of value comes from the exact service the operator and they get stuck in the apps. You need to put interoperability as a core value manifestation. You work from the value backwards to why interoperable is able to unlock that with the platforms. That's one of the things. And you realize by driving adoption more than formalizing governance. We are able to achieve more articulation for what interoperability is used for.
And now we have a fairly reasonable scale adoption in India, we have done over 200 million transactions. We realize it can protect the user platforms that are making on to the protocol and stabilize and give it a more consistent evolution. We are now formalizing some of the governance structures around it. Value entablement and value articulation and visibility is one of the things we can think about how interoperability has to reach the people. Sometimes we just keep losing the conversation in a more technical and policy circles. How does it matter in the hands of people is something that I think is important aspect of how we talk about interoperability and demonstrate interoperability.
>> SARAH NICOLE: That's interesting. Because we often hear that in all of those technical alternative spaces, especially decentralized web community. The open‑source community. Often the technical aspiration and assumption are sometimes misaligned with what users are expecting. Many people from that community are often expecting users to have a certain level of technical ability and to understand things that is part of their language only. There's often an obstacle to scalability. You shared all the technical terms are translating into usefulness in the daily life. I would like to hear from Wes. How do we go beyond the obstacles of technically assuming people have a certain level or ability to understand technically what is decentralized social graph, for instance, in the case of DSMP. Or interoperability? What is the perspective of DSMP on that front? I think Beckn has done a great job.
>> WES BIGGS: Great question. I think we made the point articulately by Sujith Nair. People are not wowed by the terms. You go on the street "do you want interoperability or data agency?" That's not top‑of‑mind. Right. Perhaps to me, because I'm a technologist. But not everyone is thinking about the usefulness of the internet in those terms.
And I think it's interesting to look at how these alternatives have evolved, as well, and in the social media and social networking space. Things like the AT protocol and Blue Sky. Many alternative models have been pioneered by essentially marginalized communities that have strong needs of safe spaces and mediated by centralized controllers. And there's almost a natural suspicion of interoperability in some of these spaces. As needing to give something up because historically it's been the case. It's been a choice between reach and scale of the big‑room idea of social media, on the one hand, and data agency and control and the ability to express ones self authentically on the other.
But that's also very constraining way of thinking about a choice of communication modes. And, you know, that's created challenges of interoperability and bridging across both protocols and the kind of content communities, the spheres of content that we think about when we interrogate the internet.
We are good at navigating that spectrum as human beings in our real lives. We're used to having spaces of all different sorts of sizes we can participate in. You know, from a family space to a classroom to our towns and communities. And, you know, of public‑speaking end spaces, as well. So, you know, I think there's a real challenge when we think about, you know, these technical affordances and how we take them main stream. It's not just creating one big space. But connect the social graph that underpins things like DSMP, and utilize that in a useful way across the many spheres that I participate in. And you participate in. If an empowering protocol can give access to all these levels of control and details. Thinking about the very complicated machine and how do everyday internet users then operate that machine. You don't want to ‑‑ you want to meet people where they are and where their understanding of how they can extract from the platforms can be. And I think there's several ways to do that. Obviously, you need that underlying, you know, kind of protocol and governance. That's going to protect that act.
But I think strong defaults and nudges at the intersection of the user experience in the protocol are very important there. You need to create an environment that kind of naturally a fits the way people are used to interacting and communicating. I think there's an real opportunity there as we move forward in the AI era to help translate the human needs and the ability for humans to express how they want to participate in the spaces. And translate those into the technical choices that are embodied in the protocols.
So I think it's about creating languages where people can express what usefulness means to them. And how that, you know, embodied and express as it goes down the stack of the protocol level.
>> SARAH NICOLE: I'm very interested about one thing. I'll hand it over to Paul after this. But I would like to ask the three of you, especially if you have different opinions, it might be interesting.
Do you think in an ideal world that users should know about the technicalities and the protocols and know we're excited about the things here. We're basically internet nerds. Or so it fine if they don't know anything about it. But they have the transparency, maybe, to have a look, if they're interested in it. Is there a strong vision you have on the level of technical savviness that your users would need to have to use the protocol?
>> SUJITH NAIR: If I can speak for everybody here. I don't think there's a difference in the view. I would like to bring nuances from my own experience as to how does that translate into a real executable, you know, action on the ground. Just to add value to the concerns we have. Technical aspects, fine aspects of interoperability and putting in the work.
I think one of the principles, and I speak not just about our Beckn Protocol, which has been a five‑year effort as a foundation. We have been working on across 15/20 different sectors using the value of interoperable peer‑to‑peer transaction. But I speak from the experience we have gotten over the last 15 years of doing some open interoperable infrastructure designs in a country like India. Touching a billion people through multiple times five or six different transformation projects. We had our friends talking about it in the other panel a few minutes ago. One of the principles we've learned is important. Interoperability is a very natural tool to solve for complexity at a population scale. How do you distribute the ability to solve? And allow people to come up with their own contextually relevant cares and solutions to fulfill the care. Needs interoperability. But to make that happen, we don't think about society rising up to the level of technology. It's the other way. It's about taking technology to the level where the society operates.
And I'll give you a few quick examples of how we have manifested that. During the COVID time, of course, all the public schools do not have the infrastructure to get students back to schooling. Whether it's from the confines of the home during the pandemic. And it is natural, like a typical value start‑up to think about "let's build a school app and get everybody online and get into the online screens." But one of the ways we thought differently about how technology meets society is to ask the question "what is already abundant in the society around which we can think of technology." And is very obvious for us to know what is abundant are the textbooks. It's been there for generations. It's something that everybody keeps and carries. It's a key sort of medium of interaction in the pupil and the teacher and the pupil and the teacher is the relationship that is societal relationship of trust that comes with pupil and teacher. It's abundant. Why don't we use that abundance and think of technology around it?
So in building the big app, what we have done is create a very, very simple interoperable QR code. And we plant it in the textbooks. Think of this as a digital portal from the area of abundance. From the area of where the agency is already available for the students and teachers.
And what was remarkable, is that, you know, to this portal, of course, we could bring them access to a whole another lot of content and teaching mechanisms and methods and learning. Whether it's from Academies or any other such tools. Allows them to participate on the portal rather than creating societal platforms. The QR code enabled infrastructure for them to offer more learning content. And this completes the antidotal example. What is truly remarkable in the experience is, we started seeing the scans not happening during the day. During the schooling hours but the night. And we saw the scans in the night because we discovered that for the first time, the teachers lack motivation to prepare for their classes were scanning content themselves to access to other teachers from the community and use it to teach better. So immediately allowed for it to be a teacher‑capacity‑building tool. Same infrastructure but we could see unforeseen value. That's where we thought technology is meeting the society. And not the other way. And I can give you more examples. We have discovered India could have gone the credit card way for the scale that it is. It could have done another $60 million, the clunky machines as a way to drive electronic payments for safety, security, and clearing your data exhaust for your own agency. But we did not go for the big clunky machines. We went for the QR. Everybody will have mobile phones. India has 900 million smartphones. Rather than making complicated technology. We made the technology itself work at scale. And we put the QR codes and mobile phones today with UPI, which is the other example of a protocol we built in India before Beckn. About 18 billion transactions per month. We got it in eight years.
This idea is how we should think about technology design in the first place. We believe in the principle of not scaling what works. Like scaling an uber for the rest of the world. To think, like, in terms of what works at scale. And then manifest value in areas where there is enough societal abundance of trust and relationships and use that to harness this technology to unlock more value. These are a little nuance and long‑winded answer. But, Sarah, thank you for the opportunity.
>> SARAH NICOLE: No worries. I'm happy to see Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo joined us online. And you already mentioned examples about functioning at scale, digital infrastructure that brings value to citizens. I'll hand it over to Paul to hand it over to Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo.
>> PAUL FEHLINGER: Thank you. Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo, can you hear us correctly? We don't see your video feed yet. If you can unmute and tell us if you ... maybe we give Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo a few more moments so we can talk from the perspective of the African Union Commission about how to scale next generation digital infrastructure for more data agency.
I wanted to ‑‑ I loved the discussion about how to create incentives. Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo ... can you hear me?
>> JEAN-BERTRAND AZAPMO: I hope my video also picks up. Is my ‑‑
>> PAUL FEHLINGER: We hear you well. We see your virtual background. We don't see you yet.
>> JEAN-BERTRAND AZAPMO: Okay. Perhaps give me a few more minutes. I may switch the device. Let me try to fix my video.
>> PAUL FEHLINGER: No problem. This is part of the beauty of remote participation.
And so, I was really fascinated listening to the remarks about the incentives. You talked a lot about the user incentives and the design, user‑centric design of technology. I believe is so important. I want to share a bit of this ecosystem. This systemic thinking approach that emerged from the Fair Data Economy Task Force. And because the core question was, as well, the same that we discussed here of how can we scale this new approach, this next generation approach to a digital economy. And the understanding is on firm economic grounds. And for this to work, we need not only product market fit in the design of things. But we need to really think systemic. And the systemic sort of actions recites on four areas I mentioned at the beginning.
I want to give it deeper, because I think it's very important to visualize this almost like a system that clocks have to be turned at the same time. There's not a resequencing of one after the other. All has to happen at the same time for this to work is what the Fair Data Economic Task Force Said. What is right now still missing a bit in the world is centres of gravity for impact‑focused entrepreneurship that rethinks the value distribution that gives birth to new normative business models that blend economic growth with data agency. So we need to think about how to create the new centres of gravity, of entrepreneurship, and to innovate at the business level. The business model level.
We talked a lot about next generation, digital infrastructure. Here, again, it's important to probably ‑‑ this is what the Fair Data Task Force to told us. To think about it like a step. Data architecture pieces, and very important protocols like DSMP, like Beckn, like others to enable the widespread adoption and drive this mainstream impact.
And in addition, at the same time, we need policy innovation and frameworks. Because what is needed is the regulatory enabling environment. So what we need is forward‑thinking policies that: One, safeguard data ownership. That gives the further right to data agency to users, or also businesses, corporate actors. While stimulating innovation and competition to create a high‑performing digital economy. That has a sort of leveling the playing field to allow market entrants with new ideas that have the market fit and correspond to the desires of better technology with powerful and scalable business models that allow them to reach mainstream adoption.
And the last piece of the puzzle is something that is especially at the Internet Governance Forum is not a topic that is talked a lot. Which is a shame because it's important. Strategic capital allocation. Nothing works without money. We need to find ways to mobilise more capital across private markets. How to prioritize capital to scale ventures and enabling at the infrastructure level and complement this by financing mechanisms. I invite us to think about it in a systemic way.
I want to see if Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo ‑‑ fantastic. We see you!
I want to hand it over to Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo with the question of what are your key take aways as a member of the Fair Data Economy Task Force? From the effort, and what role does digital infrastructure play on your digital strategy in Africa. Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo, can you hear us?
>> JEAN-BERTRAND AZAPMO: Hello. Yes, I hear you. Yes. I think. It's perfect now. Hello, can you hear me?
>> PAUL FEHLINGER: Perfectly.
>> JEAN-BERTRAND AZAPMO: Can you also see me?
>> PAUL FEHLINGER: Yes, we can.
>> JEAN-BERTRAND AZAPMO: Yes. Sincerest apologies. I think I messed up the time zones. You know, I traveled to South Africa for the IG20 meetings. I completely got lost in the middle of these time zones.
But I want to thank you, Paul. And thanks to the Project Liberty Institute, for organizing this session on such an important topic. The 2025 Internet Governance Forum. It was a privilege to serve as the task force established and facilitated by the Project Liberty Institute on fair data economy.
Professor Darron, as most of you know, is one of the 2024 Nobel economic prize recipients. Unlocking the multitrillion dollar opportunity that the digital landscape presents, actually, and you agree with me that with AI that builds on the digital infrastructure. You'll agree it was actually a very forward‑looking exercise that was appreciated by the Project Liberty Institute back then. So it really takes a toll. It takes great minds behind the projects.
Now there was some very important recommendations in the work we did. Most of which is a digital transformation strategy for Africa that we're championing at the level of the African Union. There's some element of it in AI for Africa. That South Africa is championing as part of its G20 presidency. So everything is coming together. And the key question. There are some key questions you know. The first one is the recognition the gaps we're experiencing five years into 2030, which is the target date for the Sustainable Development Goals.
There is the recognition of the fact that Digital Public Infrastructure carries an immense potential that could really help unlock some of the economic growth that we need to be able to achieve the SDGs. There is some estimate, you know. Let me give you this one from Howard University. It says Digital Public Infrastructure can unlock value equivalent to 30% GDP. Which means additional 6% improvement for emerging economy.
To put it in perspective, Africa needs 7%, 7 to 10% of economic growth over a period of 30 to 40 years to achieve emerging market status. So if we were to, you know, implement to invest and be able to reap the benefits of public digital infrastructure. You can see that we will be able to reach those targets in a very short period of time. Because if you accumulate it you are basically at 19. If you make an average of it, you've got what you need to be able to unlock the immense opportunity that, you know, the digital landscape offers. And now the digital economy.
Now the issue is our government cannot do this alone. We are living in an era where close to 3 billion people, or 3.3 billion, to be specific, live in countries that spend more on debt interest payment. So they, therefore, do not have the resources to be able to invest in Digital Public Infrastructure. This is a dilemma. We know what Digital Public Infrastructure will have achieved. But the government are constrained. What does it mean? It means a new approach is needed. This is where multi stakeholderrism holds a great potential. And looking at multi stakeholderrism, it's not really based on, you know, just some philanthropic. No. It's based on self‑enlightened interest. It's to say the businesses themselves, they stand to benefit from investing in digital infrastructure because it will then help unlock all the potentials that we are talking about. And the private sector is the first beneficial. We're actually saying in the context of the digital transformation strategy for Africa. In the context of the AI initiative for AI for Africa. Let us invest in Digital Public Infrastructure. Because of the immense potential it holds. Also, because it will help create win‑win situations for all the stakeholders. The businesses need to continue growing. And the only way to grow is to invest in those places that are lagging behind.
So what is the alternative? The alternative is a fragmented world. The "New York Times" magazine released an article that clearly shows that AI is creating a two‑paced world. The have the and not have. The question is, do we want to continue entertaining it?
I think the platforms like the Internet Governance Forum actually provide an opportunity to reflect on what needs to be done. Building on the work that organizations and institutions like public Project Liberty Institute are doing and say "let's choose the right answer." let's not aim for, you know, a divided world. Where we have people sitting at the periphery of the system and people moving at the regular pace. The consequence would be continuing nationalism that we are witnessing.
These gaps are also in developing countries. There's a need to focus on delivering Digital Public Infrastructure that is sustainable and inclusive and have the world move toward achieving the SDGs. It's getting closer because, you know, today it's very clear with target, there's little we can do. At least if we do the right thing, we can close the gap a little bit. And then going forward, we will be able to do more.
So let me stop here for now, Paul. And looking forward to either the next round of interventions or, you know, contributing to other aspects of the discussions. Thank you and sincerest apologies, once again, for the mess up.
>> PAUL FEHLINGER: Happy you can connect, Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo! I hand it back over to Sarah live in Norway.
>> SARAH NICOLE: Thank you very much, Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo. Thank you. You made it clear that scalability won't be achieved without substantial investment. I wish we could talk about investment much more. We probably need another session dedicated only to this. That's a substantial and key component of also the scalability of digital infrastructure.
But you mentioned something that interested me. It needs to work for everyone and needs to be inclusive. And, Wendy, with your broad experience and expertise and designing governance models, how can digital inclusion and equitable participation be realized when we ‑‑ and we talked about it during the session ‑‑ hundreds of millions of users. How can we ensure systems that allow everybody an equal participation and equal inclusion? And before you respond, I'm happy to see that there is already questions online. After Wendy's response, we'll open the floor up. Wendy, over to you.
>> WENDY SELTZER: Thank you. I'll try to keep it short so we can get to the questions. If not a deep and challenging question.
Because, you know, I think we reach for the essence of participatory design and governance. And to be building with the participation of those affected by the systems and ecosystems. And as referenced earlier, we have people who are at, you know, all levels of technological sophistication. All level was of engagement with the technology. Those who are designers and builders. Those who are users. Those who are not yet users because they don't have access to the technology. And finding ways to include all of those perspectives and give people real options for participation and not just, you know, the semblance of inclusion. It's a real challenge.
I think what we can try to do is to work progressively and to ensure that, you know, the structures that we're constructing are as inclusive as we can make them to represent the experiences of participants from all walks of life. And it's important in participatory design to recognise that expertise can take a variety of forms. And that lived experience of a particular background is as important as technological expertise or legal expertise to making a construction that works for people.
But we also recognise we can't do everything at once. So, you know, in building a sense of temporariness in the early stages. Recogniseing that while we can try to do the best we can at inclusive governance, when people come and say they are not yet represented being open to hearing from them. And expanding to be more inclusive. It's important. Yeah. And where there are, you know, resource inequities and imbalances. We need to be conscious of that and taking extra steps that we're designing isn't just, you know, enshrining an existing balance of power, but making space for those who don't have the same economic advantage right now.
And that's not just an altruistic perspective. You know, it's, you know, if we're really talking about how we grow the data economy, it's looking to people who will be participants if given opportunities. Those have to be real opportunities. It's not just the opportunity to be a consumer. But the opportunity to share ideas, to be entrepreneurs, to be social entrepreneurs, and to participate in governance.
Those are some of the principles that are put in place and, you know, we're working in places like the DSMP Governance Frameworks to put those into action. And I hope we'll have opportunity to engage more on that in questions and answers.
>> SARAH NICOLE: Wonderful.
Thank you. Thank you, Wendy, for the final insights.
I'd like to ask UNESCO, Xianhong Hu.
>> SPEAKER: Thank you Sarah and Paul. Congratulations for having successfully raised this important aspect on the data economy, which I didn't see mentioned at debates at IGF. Because we're talking about data governance from a more political angle. That's really such a value added to the entire agenda.
And as you know, we are here working with other governments. What are the implications of governments. What should they do in face of a multitrillion dollar debt economy for a sustainable development prospect. Plus, facing so many risks and challenges. And what should we do for governments? In the past years, in my work, in promoting maybe more conservative approach that data protection, protecting rights, the privacy. But what do we need to put an equal attention and harnessing the potential. Now data is new opportunities for any country to want to prosper in the digital age.
And at an institutional level, there's a new approach. What do you wish to do? To my knowledge, we're having 120 countries who have created their data protection authority. If we want to make sure that the government cannot miss the opportunity. Can put in place rights, framework, and regulation policies to encourage the digital infrastructure development and the economy. Recommend on creating new institutions for the economic data agency, data stewardship, or should we existing data authority to expand and enhance their capacity to cope with the challenge of the data economy. That's my question for you.
Also, I appreciate the panelists in terms of geographic diversity. If you can share more about the regional perspective, that would be useful for me. I imagine a situation, the challenges in Asia and the Africa might be quite different stories. So thank you. I look forward to learning more from you. Thank you.
>> SARAH NICOLE: Thank you. We have a very government‑oriented questions for the panel.
Could you please introduce yourself. And then ask your question. And then the panel can take your questions.
>> SPEAKER: Yes. Thank you. My name is Veronica with the Youth Pirate Party of Sweden. I have a philosophical question about the future of social networking. I and my party recognise the wills of many people to wanting to remain anonymous online.
And I wonder with the advent of this, for example, the DSMP, the future of an interconnected internet where, for example, your workplace may use the same account as your political opinions on a different social network. Is there any plans to go forward to recognise the right for people wanting to remain anonymous on the new internet? Thank you.
>> SARAH NICOLE: Thank you very much. Two different question complimentary questions. I believe one technical and one philosophical and more governmental.
To the panel, you can go ahead knowing that you have three minutes left to respond to all of this. Who would like to go first?
>> WES BIGGS: I'll go first. I think it's important to maintain the ability to have anonymity or pseudonymity online. And not just in kind of a social communication space, but in all aspects of how we engage online in a digital economy, as well.
So I think there are affordances to not be bound to a single identity to have multiple personas across different aspects. It's important to distinguish that from a governmental identity, which I think is appropriate for certain uses but not necessarily for all the spheres of communication that people want to participate in.
>> SARAH NICOLE: Maybe Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo for the governmental question, if you want to take that one?
>> JEAN-BERTRAND AZAPMO: Can you hear me?
>> SARAH NICOLE: Yes.
>> JEAN-BERTRAND AZAPMO: Yes. Well thank you so much for the comments and questions.
What is very clear, like I said, is that there is only that much government can do. There is what they can do.
For instance, what we're doing in Africa, we are laying the foundation, the legal foundation for, you know, Digital Public Infrastructure to expand. And for the digital economy to thrive. For instance, we had the convention on data protection, which was there, of course. It needs to be updated and to take into consideration the evolving environment. We recently, as last year, our Heads of State adopted the African continental free trade digital area protocol. We have protocol of digital trade, which basically provides a framework for accelerating digital economy in this market of 1.4 billion consumers. It's also clear that the government should beyond, you know, legislation there is also a need to put in place the data elements of what would be considered as a conducive enabling environment. You know, in some instances, for Digital Public Infrastructure, you need physical infrastructure itself.
So the government needs to put in place other legislations, ancillary legislations that are needed. There are also instances where it's just to guarantee, you know, the investment to provide the necessary guarantees for investment to step in. And deploy the resources that are needed.
But what is very clear is where ‑‑ whether governments in some places can do it or not. We still see the opportunity for philanthropics, for the private sector to step in. And this an account of the huge opportunities that are there. And that they stand to harness if they were to invest. Now if you just take the Digital Public Infrastructure as a road you know, all of us we use roads every day. Without even realizing someone billed it. It's only when it's not there that we realize, oh, it's actually critical. So I think in areas in sectors like minerals. There are examples of, you know, public/private partnership to build digital ‑‑ public infrastructure. This can be duplicated in the digital data economy. Like we said, we have a private sector that have gone alone solo to do it. In Kenya, for instance, it was all private sector led.
>> SARAH NICOLE: I'm sorry, Jean‑Bertrand Azapmo. We're out of time. There was a question online we didn't manage to respond to. So this just proves, also, all the more how this conversation is important. And how it needs to include everybody in the discussion.
So I wanted to thank you all so much. Because we have to leave the room for the next session, unfortunately. But we can definitely continue this discussion. As we mentioned, you can go on projectliberty.io. You can the report. At 2:00 p.m. for those in in‑person. We'll have a closed‑door session to include a deep dive on the discussions. If you're interested in joining, please come to us and we'll make it happen.
And in the meantime, please join me in thanking this wonderful panel today. Thank you all!
