BDT Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin was a keynote speaker for the Business Council for International Understanding's event on Connectivity: An Enabler of Digital Transformation & Inclusion.
Other distinguished speakers included Mr Peter Tichansky, President & CEO, BCIU; Ms Ruth Dowling, General Counsel Latin America & EMEA American Tower Corporation; Ms Bernadette Lewis, Secretary General Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation; Mr K Ramchand, Member Technology, Digital Communications Commission, Ministry of Communications, Government of India; Mr Seongil Seo, Director, Head of the ICT Industry Policy Division Ministry of Science and ICT, Government of the Republic of South Korea; and Mr Andrew Reinsdorf, Senior Vice President – International Public Affairs and Warner Media Government Relations, AT&T.
Ms Bogdan-Martin highlighted digital technology as THE critical enabler of social and economic development. She mentioned that emerging technologies hold great promise for overcoming many of the barriers that have blocked significant progress in connecting the world. They also offer the chance to leverage information in new and creative ways, and to use the power of analysis to find inspired solutions to age-old problems.
She stated, ''The bottom line is that we're going to have to find creative ways to collaborate. We need new regulatory models. We need to leave behind old adversarial competitive paradigms and replace them with a more cooperative approach, where companies and regulators find ways of working together to get networks and services out to where they can do the most good.''
Ms Bogdan-Martin also emphasized that getting the second half of the world connected will demand a broad approach that goes well beyond network infrastructure. ITU figures already show that 93% of the world lives within reach of a 3G mobile broadband signal, yet only half of those people are currently using these networks. She underlined digital skills as an area that requires special focus, since lack of digital literacy is a major impediment to digital uptake.
ITU is working on several fronts to reinforce and expand efforts around digital skills development, particularly for marginalized populations and communities including women and girls, rural dwellers, disempowered youth, and displaced persons.
Ms Bogdan-Martin highlighted the necessity of harnessing the power of youth and innovation. She said, ''We need young teams in developing countries to start building the apps and services that will be meaningful to their local communities. We've already seen the massive success of mobile money services that were pioneered in Africa. We need to empower countries to nurture a home-grown tech culture that can deliver compelling and relevant services, in appropriate formats like local languages and via voice-driven interfaces.''
Pointing to the chance the COVID crisis has given to bring governments and industry together around universal connectivity, she concluded ''for us all to benefit fully, we need everyone to benefit equally.''
