Highlights – June 2022
27 June - 3 July
Capacity development: Asia and Pacific
ITU co-organized an ITU Academy training with UTM, Malaysia, under the auspices of CoE Wireless and Fixed Broadband programme in Asia and the Pacific from 27 June to 1 July. A total of 49 participants registered for this training to learn and discuss the implementation, considerations, spectrum management communication and commercial use cases of 5G Technology. ITU contributed as a tutor and delivered a presentation on 'Economics of Spectrum Management'.
Cybersecurity: Asia and Pacific
ITU participated and intervened at the MPTC-UNICEF Child Online Protection kick-off workshop in Cambodia on 28 June. This workshop aimed to inform the public and relevant stakeholders on the intentions of finding technological solutions, with the important engagement from ICT companies to Child Online Protection, promote engagement of ICT companies on Child Online Protection and explore the application of new technologies in Child Online Protection and the possibilities of using those for COP in Cambodia. ITU delivered a presentation on “ITU COP Guideline for Industry: company case studies” at the opening session as well as attended the panel discussion on “The role of private sectors in raising public awareness and behavioral change on Child Online Risk and Protection”.
Cybersecurity:
The team delivered three events for various audiences: (a) Two Mentorship Circles for programme mentees and mentors providing them with mentorship guidance, and best practices, and enabling an exchange of experiences and learning; (b) As part of INSPIRE series of the programme, an Inspirational Keynote session entitled “Cybersecurity Careers: Where to Start” with Helen Patton, Advisory CISO at Cisco. This event, attended by programme participants and the general public, shared ideas and resources to help students and mid-career professionals take advantage of opportunities to move into cybersecurity and explored strategies for achieving success in the field.
Digital inclusion:
Generation Connect is proud to partner with Kofi Annan Foundation once again for the Kofi Annan Changemakers (KAC) 2022 cohort. The KAC initiative group gives voice to young leaders and builds their capacity for positive action on today’s challenges. Two members of the Generation Connect community have been selected to be part of the Kofi Annan Changemakers 2022 – congratulations to Qjiel Mariano, a winner of the Generation Connect Video Pitch Challenge 2021, and Shradha Pandey, GC-ASP Youth Envoy.
Digital inclusion: Asia and Pacific
ITU delivered a presentation at the Regional Consultation on the Draft Declaration on the Digital Transformation of Education Systems in ASEAN on 24 June. Co-sponsored by UNICEF and hosted by the Department of Education of the Philippines, the meeting was well attended by a wide range of resource persons and participants from the ASEAN Secretariat and representatives of ASEAN Member States and international organizations. ITU highlighted the Kigali Resolution on school connectivity with reference to ITU/UNICEF Giga initiative, Child Online Protection, and gender/women’s empowerment, including the international day of Girls in ICT. During the deliberations, ITU proposed three points that were registered among the recommendations:
- Addressing the gaps between the telecoms/digital sector and education sector through a regularized dialogue between ASEAN Sectoral bodies, namely the Telmin and the ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting (ASED)
- Leveraging the emerging technologies to address last-mile connectivity challenges; and
- Establishing an ASEAN segment of the Giga initiative, particularly to address the financial challenges.
Digital inclusion: Asia and Pacific
ITU participated in the Asia Pacific Intergovernmental meeting on the 4th Review and Appraisal of MIPAA, held from 29 - 1 July, organized by UNESCAP. ITU delivered a statement on its support and continued collaboration with member countries and UN agencies to support digital inclusion for older persons in the region. ITU also participated in a roundtable discussion on “Ensuring enabling and supportive environment” to discuss the challenges faced by older persons to connect to the Internet, as well as how ICTs can support the wellbeing of older persons. In this session, ITU also discussed the findings from the ITU Global Connectivity Report 2022 and “Ageing in a Digital World – from Vulnerable to Valuable”.
Digital services and applications: Asia and Pacific
On June 30, ITU participated in the “Webinar for LDC Journalists” hosted by the United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS). ITU presented on the topic of Leveraging Science, Technology, and Innovation, particularly on leveraging digital technologies to connect the unconnected and achieve sustainable development. 46 journalists originating from each LDC joined the webinar. They were fellows of the fellowship programme organised by the UN-OHRLLS and Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Digital services and applications: Asia and Pacific
ITU participated in the High-Level (Ministerial) launch of a Digital Village Knowledge Sharing Platform on 27 June at the regional office for Asia and the Pacific. The programme was part of FAO 1000 Digital Village Initiative designed to promote digital innovations in rural areas, reduce the rural-urban digital gap for the benefit of small-scale producers, rural women, youth, entrepreneurs, and village and rural communities and small towns. During the event, ITU shared its experiences and views on Smart Villages and Smart Islands.
Digital services and applications: Asia and Pacific
ITU made a presentation on “Digital Financial Services Ecosystem: Opportunities for the Postal Sector” on 27th June during a training organized by the Asian-Pacific Postal Union for the participants from the postal sector.
Study Groups:
The Environment team presented an update on its work on climate change, e-waste and the circular economy to the ITU-T Study Group 5 (Electromagnetic fields (EMF), environment, climate action, sustainable digitalization, and circular economy), which was held at ITU headquarters, Geneva, from 21 June - 1 July. The focus of the presentation was to highlight key discussions that took place during WTDC-22 that will impact the mandate, role, and work of the Environment team over the next 4-year period, including in terms of its key Resolutions, Study Group Questions, and the Action Plan. A short overview was also provided of the team's recently launched report on 'Greening Digital Companies'.
BBCom:
Broadband has equipped youth all over the world with the power to connect, educate and innovate. With access to online education and the ability to start digital businesses, youth are empowered to use the Internet to drive digital transformation. In this edition of the #BroadbandTransformingLives series, our Generation Connect members and changemakers Dogara Iliya, Muskan Fatima, Qjiel Mariano & Rose Sendege shared their experiences of using the Internet to promote digital skills development, combat disinformation, and increase online safety. This series was developed in partnership with the Broadband Commissioner from Huawei. To see more videos detailing how broadband can transform lives worldwide, visit their website.
PRIDA: Africa
From 27 - 28 June the PRIDA project technical committee was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. During the meeting, the Project Manager presented the project’s results and the status of implementation of activities. He also submitted the list of additional activities. After discussions, the technical committee members validated a list of 16 activities to add to the ongoing activities. These activities will be submitted to the EU Delegation for a final approval before implementation.
Other:
GovStack Global Annual Convene 2022 was held in Berlin. The founding partners of the initiative – GIZ, the Government of Estonia, ITU and DIAL – reviewed the progress up to date and priorities for 2022 - 2023. The key milestones considered were the publication of the technical specifications for foundational building blocks under ‘wave one’: ID, Payments, IM specifications, Registries, Registration, Security & Architecture. The second wave building blocks are under technical review and cover Messaging, Scheduling, Workflow and Information Consent. The launch of the GovStack CIO Digital Leaders Forum shared the digital transformation journeys of Egypt, Peru, Rwanda, Estonia, India, Ukraine. Call for contributors for ‘wave three’ is now 'open' to help us reach technical experts around the world. Country pilot implementations have started with Egypt, Peru, Rwanda, Papua New Guinea, and the Horn of Africa – Djibouti, Somalia & Kenya.
Other:
At the #TransformingEducation Pre-Summit in Paris from 28 - 30 June, videos of youth interviewed at the Generation Connect Global Youth Summit on Digital Learning, Future of Work, and Climate Change were shown. Check them out here –
- Future of work: https://youtu.be/r86nUZvCJEA
- Climate change: https://youtu.be/7gJvte2Kj5w
- Digital learning: https://youtu.be/psoSAWcI8Dk
The Generation Connect Europe Youth Envoy, also participated in the event in Paris.
Other:
GovStack Global presented a progress update at My Data Conference 2022 on 'Information Consent and Digital Identity Building Blocks Technical Specifications'. MyData 2022 brings together stakeholders representing Business, Legal, Tech and Social perspectives, because they are all equally important for accelerating the human-centric policies and approaches to personal data and the data economy. MyData collaborates with GovStack Global on the Information Consent Technical Working Group. This technical specification is currently under the technical review process and will be released in August 2022 as part of GovStack Wave 2 of technical specs together with scheduling, workflow and messaging building blocks.
Other:
During the Generation Connect Global Youth Summit, ITU had the pleasure to host the "Youth and Artificial Intelligence: Designing our Possible Futures" in partnership with AI For Good, where the voices and visions of youth on the future of AI were unveiled. AI For Good’s message is that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital innovation offer an incredible opportunity to create long-term improvements to lives on a global scale, especially for young people. It is therefore now more important than ever that global youth voices are heard and understood in conversations about AI in order to design a better and safer future for all.
Other:
Our colleague Sarah Delporte delivered a session to 100+ youth between 12 and 19 years old trained at the UNTWO Youth Tourism Summit in Italy on how to navigate the online world safely to feel empowered by the digital world. They also learned about how ITU strives to meaningfully engage them as equal partners alongside digital leaders to create their own digital future with #GenerationConnect.
20 - 26 June
Digital inclusion: Asia and Pacific
ITU participated in the Expert Group Meeting on Final Review of the Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities (2013-2022) on 23 June. The meeting was organised by UNESCAP. ITU delivered a presentation on “Partnerships for fuelling disability-inclusive Asia-Pacific digital transformation” to introduce participants to ITU’s multistakeholder model and work on ICT Accessibility. This meeting aimed to generate recommendations to develop strategic direction and doable action priorities, for the period 2023-2030.
Digital inclusion:
ITU contributed to the two-day retreat related to the Global Accelerators for Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions initiative, in support of the combined efforts of multiple UN agencies in New York, and Geneva, with the ambition of bringing together Member States, international financial institutions, social partners, civil society and the private sector to help countries create 400 million decent jobs, including in the green, digital and care economies, and to extend social protection coverage to the 4 billion people currently excluded. BDT delivered a speech emphasizing the importance of the Digital Inclusiveness aspect in the context of the transformation of digital economies, making sure that no one is left behind, regardless of age, location, or ability to use technology. In addition, it was highlighted that ICTs and Digital technology, in the Just Transitions context, must consider the needs of all the intended users to access and use ICTs, ensuring their availability, affordability, and accessibility for all, whether they are migrants, young people, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and older persons or in general people in a vulnerable situation.
Digital Inclusion: Asia and Pacific
The Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) together with the National Broadcasting Services of Thailand (NBT) and ITU co-hosted a virtual in-country training on Media Literacy & Disinformation as part of the Girls in ICT Day Thailand 2022 programme on 22-23 June in Bangkok, Thailand with the participation of more than 30 students. ITU delivered remarks highlighting its efforts towards digital inclusion and empowering girls and young women as well as encouraging participants of the training to advance their knowledge on media literacy and to counter and address disinformation as part of leveraging resources, knowledge, and partnerships to narrow the gender digital divide.
Digital inclusion: Global
BDT actively participated in side-events such as on the “UN Disability Inclusion Strategy”, “WHO-ITU Global standard for accessibility of telehealth services” and “Building Capacities to implement accessibility policies”, a side event organised by the European Disability Forum and the European Commission. In this side-event, BDT was invited to speak about its work and experience in ICT accessibility from the perspective of challenges and solutions, to build capacities in digital accessibility, to policy and decision-makers in the Europe region and beyond. Furthermore, on behalf of the ITU Secretary-General Mr Houlin Zhao, BDT also delivered the ITU/all sectors Report on ICT accessibility within the “Interactive Dialogue with the UN System on the implementation of the CRPD”. BDT shared its work, and expertise and promoted ITU tools and Resources in ICT/digital accessibility. These were commended as valuable tools to support stakeholders’ efforts towards mainstreaming ICT accessibility cross-sectoral and at all levels to advance CRPD implementation, and thus, ensure equal and equitable digital inclusion of all people including those with disabilities to jointly build a digitally inclusive world for all.
Digital inclusion: Global
The UN/DESA held the 15th session of the Conference of States Parties (COSP15) to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) this week. This flagship annual event organised by the United Nations brought together an impressive number of multi-stakeholders including those from UN Agencies, Member States, the private sector, and Disabled Persons Organisation (DPOs), to report on their activities aimed at advancing CRPD implementation, discuss the most critical needs of persons with disabilities (PWD) identifying related actions and finally, monitor the implementation of the Convention globally. In addition to the plenary sessions, the COSP15 held over 80 side events that focus on topics related to PwD rights, including access to information and communication in the digital ecosystems, cities, societies and economies.
Digital inclusion: Asia and Pacific
On 23 June, ITU participated in the Focus Group Discussion - Policy Paper on Women’s Empowerment organised by the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection Indonesia leading up to the G20 Ministerial Conference on Women Empowerment 2022 that will take place in August 2022. The Ministry has identified six policy-notes leads to the six issues identified that will have major impact on existing gender inequality and women empowerment across the G20 20 member countries. The issues are digital economy, health, employment, environment, energy, and education. There are also two cross-cutting areas: telecommunications (ITU as content contributor) and infrastructure (UNDP as content contributor). ITU intervened in the discussion and shared one of the outcome reports of the ITU WTDC on resolution 55 (Rev. Kigali, 2022) on Mainstreaming a gender perspective in ITU to enhance women's empowerment through telecommunications/ICTs. It also outlined ITU’s collaboration with the Ministry of Communications and Informatics of Indonesia that has co-organised the Girls in ICT Day celebration since 2016.
Digital inclusion: Asia and Pacific
The Girls in ICT Access and Safety event was co-organised by the Digital Council of Thailand, the Office of the National Broadcasting Telecommunication Commission and ITU on 23 June 2022. This webinar helped to support the world’s agenda to inspire girls and young women with positive attitudes, potentials and beliefs to thriving in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers, to lower barriers to access and improving safety online for girls and young women. The webinar also helped to establish key indicators to uplift digital skills for development for girls and young women in Thailand as part of the annual campaign of ‘Girls in ICT’. ITU shared a presentation on “Cultivation of the digital skills of young women and girls” and highlighted the digital skills statistics from ITU Facts and Figures 2022 and promoted the series of the Girls in ICT Day Thaland 2022 digital skills training programme. ITU also invited a Generation Connect Asia and the Pacific youth representative to present ITU’s efforts to empower the youth at global and regional level during the session “ICT and future of technology”.
Environment: Americas
Following the consultation meeting held in Santo Domingo to launch the public consultation of the draft WEEE Regulation in the Dominican Republic, the Environment and Emergency Telecommunication (EET) team was invited by SAMSUNG Electronics to participate in a training session dedicated to key managers and staff from different teams and divisions of SAMSUNG Latin America headquarters in Panama City. The session was held via webinar, with ITU staff connecting online to deliver a comprehensive overview of the E-waste issue – including background information, definitions, responsibilities of producers within the EPR (extended producer responsibility) framework and concrete applications through the example of the latest WEEE Regulation drafted in the Dominican Republic. The training received positive feedback from SAMSUNG representatives, who showed interest in further cooperating with ITU on the challenging issue of E-waste management in the Latin America Region.
Environment: Global
The report 'Greening digital companies: Monitoring emissions and climate commitments', jointly authored by ITU and the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA), was launched on 22 June with a press release. The report documents the emissions and energy use of 150 of the world's leading tech companies. Beyond assessing corporate climate data and targets, the report highlights best practices for digital companies to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and achieve carbon-neutral operations. The report found that operational GHG emissions of the companies accounted for 239 million tonnes in 2020, equivalent to 0.8 per cent of the world total. The companies consumed 425 TWh of electricity in 2020, accounting for 1.6 per cent of global electricity production. The launch was accompanied by two online webinars on 23 June with speakers from Ericsson, Greenpeace, Sony, the European Commission, Ørsted, Proximus, ADEME and UN Environment Programme.
Network and digital infrastructure: Asia and Pacific
ITU participated in a national multi-stakeholder meeting for eTrade Readiness Assessment of Mongolia organized by UNCTAD. ITU presented its recent and ongoing work on meaningful, safe-secure and resilient ICT infrastructure which can boost e-commerce development.
Giga: Africa
A short video has been released on the first joint ITU and UNICEF Giga school visit in Rwanda on 8 June. The Groupo ScolaireNyagihunika is a Giga Rwanda connected school located 40km outside Kigali. The video features the Giga connectivity installations in the school and how teachers and students followed classes where technologies and the internet were in use. The visitors included 20 Giga friends and partners alongside high level ITU and UNICEF staff, the State Minister for Primary and Secondary Education in Rwanda, representatives from the Ministry of Education, Ministry of ICT and Innovation as well as representatives from the local municipality.
13 - 19 June
Digital Inclusion: Asia and Pacific
On 9 June, a webinar session in commemoration of the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) 2022 was organised by the Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry (AITI) in Brunei Darussalam. In support of this celebration, the ITU Regional Office delivered a speech on “Digital technologies for
older persons and healthy ageing,” the theme of this year’s WTISD. It highlighted ITU’s focus on digitally empowering the elderly for them to lead a fulfilling, healthy and active life.
Policy and Regulation: Asia and Pacific
On 6 June, ITU in its capacity as a co-chair of the UN Country Team Result Group 4 (innovation for SDGs) attended a meeting with the Ministry of National Development Planning, the Republic of Indonesia ahead of the UN – Ministry of National Development Planning Forum on 28 June 2022.
Giga: Global
On 7 June, Giga was featured at WTDC Partner2Connect Digital Development Roundtable Spotlight Session 1: Partnering to Transform Education. Mr Fayaz King, Deputy Executive Director, UNICEF and Mr Chris Fabian, Co-Lead Giga presented the progress made by the ITU-UNICEF initiative to connect every school in the world to the Internet by 2030. The panelists also included H.E. Ms Paula Ingabire, Rwanda
Minister of Information.Communications Technology and Innovation, H.E. Dr Tariq Al Gurg, CEO & Vice-Chairman, Dubai Cares and a Rwandan high-school teacher from a Giga connected school. The three-day (ITU Partner2Connect Digital Coalition) P2C Digital Development Roundtable sessions can be viewed at: Webcasts and captioning
(itu.int) On twitter: #Partner2Connect - Twitter Search / Twitter.
Giga: Global
On 9 June, the last day of the Partner2Connect Digital Development Roundtable, H.E. Mr. Thomas Schneider, Ambassador and Director for International Affairs at the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) announced Switzerland's support to host Giga HQ in Geneva. The new Giga Office in Geneva will serve as a unique collaboration point, bridging the world of finance with the world of international relations and development.
I-CoDI: Arab States
This year, I-CoDI is launching I-CoDI Regional Hubs! The UAE Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) at the WTDC Partner2Connect Digital Development Roundtable pledged to invest AED 5 million (more than US$1.3M) to support the I-CoDI initiative, through hosting the I-CoDI Regional Hub for Arab
States – supporting ITU Regional Office for the Arab States in providing trainings and workshops to empower member states in the region in their digital transformation strategies.
6 - 12 June
Digital Inclusion: Africa
Within the ITU-EIF Project, the fourth and final digital market session for women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia was held on 26 May. Over four weeks, women learned more about how to fully understand their customers using digital tools, and build their brand identity, wholesale marketing, and pricing.
Digital Inclusion: Asia and Pacific
On 30 May 2022, the Ministry Post and Telecommunication Cambodia (MPTC), Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology (CADT) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) co-organised “Girls in ICT Day Cambodia 2022” with the delivery of three workshops on IoT Automation, Security, and Online safety for Girl as part of digital skills training programme. The event was organised physically in CADT’s Innovation Centre building, Phnom Penh, Cambodia with the participation of more than 80 high school students. ITU contributed to delivering a workshop on Online safety introduction and showcased Online safety with Sango videos from episodes 1 to 5 to 27 participants. The students also engaged in some interactive sessions facilitated by CADT around online safety during COVID-19.
Digital Inclusion: Asia and Pacific
Through the support of USAID's Digital Asia Accelerator program and the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD), ITU has facilitated the attendance of six girl/women journalists (2 from Mongolia, 2 from Indonesia, 1 from Cambodia, and 1 from Thailand) to Kigali for GC Youth Summit and WTDC. Their participation will enable them to report on the discussions and success of this landmark event back to
their respective countries. The journalists were specifically selected as part of a broader training programme, to enhance their capacity development and awareness-raising for their career development and aspiration to specialize in digital technology reporting.
Digital Inclusion: Europe
On 19 May, the Generation Connect Team in Europe together with CEPT, Com-ITU had the pleasure to organize a special event where the European Youth Envoys, being the delegates to the upcoming Generation Connect Youth Summit had the pleasure to discuss their vision for meaningful Youth Engagement in Europe and Beyond with European administrations. A huge congratulations to them!
Digital Inclusion: Arab States
On 26 May, the members of Generation Connect Arab team organized the Arab Digital Youth event with the aim to create a platform for meaningful engagement between the Arab leaders from different organizations and the Generation Connect Arab Regional Youth Group to lift young voices to regional level discussions. It also aims to build foundations to strengthen youth engagement and involvement in the Arab region.
Digital Inclusion: Europe
The European Accessibility Summit, held from 31 May to 1 June 2022, brought together key regional and global players to foster an accessible and digitally inclusive region in Europe. The Summit focused on the national and regional implementation of the European Accessibility Act (EAA) in relation to the digital inclusion of all people, regardless of their ability to use the technology. The EAA implementation is fully in line with the ITU Strategic Goal Nr. 2 “Inclusiveness” and its target 2.9 which calls on ITU
members “to ensure enabling environments for persons with disabilities in all countries by 2023”. ITU-D participated in five panels and discussions by raising awareness and sharing with Summit participants the ITU (over 60) Resources developed in ICT accessibility such as the guideline report of ICT accessibility assessment for Europe region, aiming at supporting the European efforts to implement the EAA and transposing it efficiently at the national level. Moreover, ICT accessibility recent developments in Europe and multisectoral stakeholders' efforts in relation to the application of the EAA were identified, for the purpose of including them in the further work of ITU related to digital inclusion and digital accessibility. Finally, the Summit highlighted the stakeholder’s, good practices, strategies, and innovative initiatives aiming at ensuring equal and equitable use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by all people, including those with disabilities, thus, ensuring that everyone is digitally included in Europe region.
Digital Inclusion:
To support the development of digitally inclusive societies, ITU-D participated in the final week of the World Summit on the Information Society- WSIS Forum 2022 in four sessions related to digital inclusion topics focusing on Smart Cities, ICTs accessibility, and Older Persons. During these sessions the ICT/digital accessibility resources -
including the newly realized online self-paced training, 'Beyond smart cities equal “Smart for all”: towards building inclusive and digitally accessible environments and communities to meet the needs of present and future generations' - were shared with more than 200 online WSIS participants, to strengthen WSIS global participants knowledge in the topic and support ITU members’ and stakeholders’ efforts in the realization of the overarching goal of digital inclusion on a global scale.
In addition, private and public stakeholders’ achievements and progress pertaining to accelerating the digital transformation to improve the lives of all people without discrimination of age, gender, ability of location, was recognized to be comprised within the ITU’s work and reflected within the Sustainable Development Goals 10 (Reduced inequalities) and 11 (Making sustainable cities and communities inclusive), safe and resilient, while also ensuring that these are digitally inclusive.
Environment: Americas
Under the framework of the joint ITU-UNEP project on “Implementing the EPR Concept in Policies and Regulations for the Sound Management of E-waste”, the BDT team facilitated the validation workshop of the draft reglamento para la gestión integral de los residuos de aparatos eléctricos y electrónicos. The validation workshop was attended by many key stakeholders from across different sectors. In the margins of the
workshop, the BDT team met with the Minister of Environment, senior representatives of INDOTEL and with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency.
Giga: Global
On 1 June, Alex Wong, ITU Chief Special Initiatives and Giga Co-lead, was a panelist at the World Summit on the Information Society Forum 2022 (WSIS) session “WSIS-High level dialogue on the Transforming Education Summit and the 2023 GEM Report on technology and education”, where he presented Giga and how this initiative builds
successful partnerships to advance access, connectivity, and digital transformation.
I-CoDI: Global
The new ITU’s International Centre of Digital Innovation (I-CoDI) website has been launched. I-Codi invites all readers to visit the new, exciting and easy to navigate I-CoDI website. Find out about I-CoDI latest events, get in depth information about workshops, opening of I-CoDI Regional Hubs, partnership possibilities, and watch the I-CoDI promotional video. These are some of the exciting actualities you can find and explore on this new site. I-CoDI is designed as a 'One ITU' enabling space and mechanism, connecting expertise across all bureaus to facilitate cocreation of innovative solutions for meaningful connectivity and digital transformation. I-CoDI is helping key ITU stakeholders and policy-makers experiment with new tools and processes to effectively use technology to address connectivity challenges. I-CoDI works on fostering internal innovation capabilities and promoting accelerated innovation approaches via ITU Regional Offices. Please visit the new I-CoDI website
at: https://www.itu.int/itu-d/sites/i-codi/
Other:
The new Broadband map interface is here (bbmaps.itu.int/app). Beyond the interface revamp for visualizing ICT infrastructure, the platform simplifies quick access to ITU infrastructure-related indexes. Ongoing developments include tailored visualizations to be used in country assistance connectivity projects.
Other: Global
ITU-D participated in four sessions of the WSIS Forum related to digital inclusion topics focusing on digital accessibility, technology for education, and digitized classroom. During these sessions, the ICT/digital accessibility resources developed and made freely available in multiple languages and in digitally accessible format were shared with WSIS participants. This is to support the ITU members’ and stakeholders’
efforts in the implementation of the global overarching goal of digital inclusion. In addition, good practices, stakeholders’ views and end-users' requirements were identified, to further ensure that the inputs and progress resulting from these sessions reflecting global trends are considered to foster digital inclusion within ITU work.
Other:
ITU-D as a part of a joint effort of nine UN Agencies and six Partners, representatives from Civil Society and other involved Stakeholders, contributed through sharing expertise and knowledge to the 1st round table series of 5 that will be held thought this year on “Mainstream knowledge on ageing: the human rights of older persons and
frontier issues”. As a result, 100 stakeholders’ knowledge on digital accessibility and its related impact on ageing was leveraged, thus further promoting the participation of older people in the socio-economic landscape and their active participation in the digital societies and economies. During this interactive roundtable, the ITU-D also
delivered further explanations to participants’ questions and specific inquiries and shared the ICT/Digital accessibility and in Ageing in digital world resources. Through our contribution ITU-D aimed at supporting UN and Stakeholders’ global efforts, in turning these two megatrends (technology rise and population ageing) into valuable opportunities and thus, build a digitally inclusive world in which we can achieve an active, healthy, and happy life for older adults of today and tomorrow.
Other: Global
ITU-D participated in the WHO (World Health Organization) Disability Forum 2022 in relation to digital health and digital inclusion for everyone, regardless of their age, gender or abilities, where ITU-D shared our work in digital accessibility and related resources aiming at supporting the WHO initiative for Digital Health and inclusion through ICTs with more than a hundred virtual and present participants.
Other:
ITU participated in the “Workshop on Tools and applications for Broadband Mapping” - Brussels - Belgium from 31 May to 2 June 2022. The Multi-Country (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine) Workshop organized by EC/TAIEX/DG-NEAR, offered an opportunity to share knowledge, experiences and solutions for building a broadband infrastructure and services map, by using open-source software, spatial
data and geographic information system (GIS). During the 3-day workshop: guidance on how to develop their own broadband service map, by using technical applications and data available in each of their countries. Furthermore, the workshop facilitated a better understanding of the relevance of the tool for the development of a digital ecosystem (promotion of investments and innovation) and presented useful
information on how to create and/or maintain a broadband mapping tool on their own. The new ITU Guidelines on National Mapping systems (NMS), results of the NMS survey and the new NMS layer (https://bbmaps.itu.int/app) were presented.
Other:
GovStack founding partners Government of Estonia, Germany, ITU and DIAL (Digital Impact Alliance) announce a Special GovStack WSIS Prize Category on Digital Service Design & Deliverable for the 2023 edition of the WSIS Forum. The Prize will recognize the best practices in digital design & delivery using a reusable components/building blocks approach, maximizing ICT investment, and innovating in services designed based on life events and user needs.
Other:
GovStack founding partners Government of Estonia, Germany, ITU and DIAL (Digital Impact Alliance) launched the GovStack CIO Digital Leaders Forum, a year-long knowledge-sharing series of workshops and webinars among global CIOs (Chief Information Officer). Each episode of the Forum will host a Government CIO to share his/her country's experience in digitization of government services using a building
block approach. The launch and 1st series of the Forum explored learn the Digital Journeys of Peru, Estonia, India, Egypt, Rwanda and Ukraine.