Scientists as Bridge-Builders: Contributing Research to Global Digital Public Goods

Global Youth Development Alliance

Session 530

Monday, 6 July 2026 ∼ 09:00–09:45 (UTC+02:00) Physical (on-site) and Virtual (remote) participation Room H2, ITU Montbrillant Building Interactive Session

Register »

Physical (on-site) and Virtual (remote) participation

A special session themed Scientists as Bridge Builders: Contributing Research Outcomes to Global Digital Public Goods is set to convene during the 2026 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum. It is designed to address notable gaps within the existing WSIS architecture: shifting scientists and entrepreneurs from developing economies from passive participants to active contributors to multilateral digital governance. Whereas prevailing WSIS activities predominantly centre on high-level policy frameworks, this session will delve into how researchers can partner with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and United Nations institutional bodies to develop global digital standards.

Rooted in WSIS’s 2015–2025 development roadmap, the summit’s long-term vision revolves around bridging the global digital divide, advancing inclusive digital transformation, and scaling accessible digital public goods worldwide. Over the decade spanning 2015 to 2025, WSIS has delivered landmark initiatives across digital infrastructure rollout, cross-border digital capacity building, and technical empowerment for developing nations. These impactful programmes have bolstered grassroots digital service delivery in emerging economies, nurtured indigenous technical talent, laid concrete groundwork for researchers to engage in international standard-setting, and built a robust foundation for deliberations at the upcoming special session.

Clocking in at 45 minutes, the event agenda comprises an opening address, keynote presentations, expert panel dialogue and closing wrap-up. Keynote talks zero in on engagement by developing-country innovators in global artificial intelligence standard formulation, while the core panel discussion explores pathways to translate laboratory research findings into international regulatory provisions. Former senior leadership from the ITU, WIPO and the United Nations will form the core panel cohort, alongside incoming ministerial delegates, startup executives and Geneva-based academic specialists.

Attendees will negotiate bilateral scientific cooperation frameworks, young researcher exchange programmes and technology transfer initiatives, translating WSIS’s 2015–2025 long-term vision into actionable collaborative projects centred on global digital public goods.

Mr. Jack Huang Taiwan, China Moderator

Advisory Board Member, Global Youth Development Action (GYDA)

Research Fellow; Member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); regular contributor to initiatives of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP), and the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community, engaging in global development advocacy initiatives.

Mr. Fabrizio Hochschild United Nation, ex-Under-Secretary-General Switzerland

GYDA Senior Advisor
United Nation, ex-Under-Secretary-General

Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
Special Advisor to the Secretary-General
Led the development of the Secretary-General’s Digital Cooperation Roadmap, influencing global tech-policy by advocating for equitable and secure digital access in accordance with the SDGs.

Mr. Jia Wang Deputy Secretary-General World Association of Young Scientists(WAYS)

Mr. Jia Wang serves as Deputy Secretary-General of the World Association of Young Scientists(WAYS), an international organization dedicated to advancing cross-border scientific collaboration, facilitating mobility for young researchers, and integrating early-career scientists into global science policy dialogues.

Prior to his current role, he worked at the International Cooperation Department of CAST, where he administered international exchange initiatives and coordinated bilateral and multilateral scientific cooperation projects. His portfolio covered institutional partnerships, researcher exchange frameworks, and scientific outreach programmes connecting scientists across diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

He holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and a Bachelor’s degree in Law, equipping him with robust policy and legal expertise to address diverse challenges within multilateral scientific governance.

Boasting extensive cross-sector experience, he effectively links early-career scientists from developing economies to global platforms. His key work includes designing youth engagement mechanisms for flagship international science conferences and fostering dialogues between researchers and policymakers to translate scientific findings into actionable governance proposals.

Mr. Allan Han Executive Director Global Youth Development Alliance (GYDA, France)

Founder and Executive Director of the Global Youth Development Alliance (GYDA) — a Paris-registered international organization mobilizing youth engagement in digital governance, academic collaboration, and sustainable development across Europe, Asia, and Africa.

He holds three master’s degrees: Master of Public Policy and Master of Economics as well as Master of Media Management from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Besides, he has completed advanced training programmes in economics and public policy at the National School of Development of Peking University and the PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University.

His research sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, data governance, and public policy, with three primary lines of inquiry: (i) algorithmic fairness and bias in public services — examining how social prejudice is systematically encoded through feature engineering, training data composition, and deployment feedback loops, with comparative analysis of global AI governance frameworks including the EU Digital Services Act (DSA); (ii) the "privacy literacy gap" in developing countries — the structural mismatch between rapid digital infrastructure rollout and citizens' capacity to protect personal data, and how AI-driven tools can close this divide; and (iii) cross-border privacy standard localization — investigating how international digital infrastructure aid programs (EU, UNDP, World Bank) can adapt imported privacy frameworks such as GDPR to local regulatory capacity and resource constraints, drawing on comparative legal analysis across the EU, US, and developing jurisdictions.

Ms. Laurel LIU Head of Research And PublicityDefiRegTech lAl Asia Academy of Digital Economics Singapore

She holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science and a double Bachelor’s in Law from the National University of Singapore, alongside an overseas exchange stint at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was awarded top-tier academic scholarships. She integrates computational technology, legal expertise and financial acumen to bridge academia, industry and multilateral digital policy formulation.

She has crafted her institute’s strategic framework for digital inclusion, which has secured endorsement from senior Singaporean government officials; built a full-stack multilingual digital media ecosystem; and spearheaded a global student innovation competition spanning 72 leading universities with upwards of 10,000 registered participants. Her ongoing work linking grassroots tech innovators with governmental regulators and international industry stakeholders aligns seamlessly with the core mission of our session: empowering researchers and entrepreneurs in developing economies to evolve from passive onlookers into proactive contributors, who shape UN-aligned global digital standards via the multilateral proceedings of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Topics

5G Technology Artificial Intelligence Big Data Capacity Building Digital Divide Digital Economy Digital Inclusion Digital Skills Digital Transformation Infrastructure Machine Learning

WSIS Action Lines

C1. The role of governments and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development
C2. Information and communication infrastructure
C4. Capacity building
C11. International and regional cooperation

The conference themed Scientists as Bridge Builders: Contributing Research Outcomes to Global Digital Public Goods directly advances core mandates laid out under the official action lines of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), notably Action Lines C2 (Information and Communication Infrastructure), C4 (Capacity Building), C6 (Enabling Environment), C9 (Media) and C11 (International and Regional Cooperation), aligning with WSIS’s 2015–2025 implementation roadmap and its post-2025 development vision.

To start with, the event ties in with WSIS Action Line C4 governing capacity building, designed to address a persistent structural gap within the WSIS framework: the marginalisation of researchers and entrepreneurs from developing nations in multilateral digital rulemaking. It brings together former senior officials from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the United Nations, alongside ministerial representatives, tech startup founders and leading academia worldwide to negotiate actionable frameworks for talent exchange and researcher empowerment. Such deliberations serve to honour WSIS’s commitment to scaling developing countries’ technical and governance capacities through the portfolio of successful capacity-building initiatives rolled out across 2015 to 2025.

Second, it operationalises Action Line C6, which targets fostering an inclusive, regulation-enabling ecosystem. Keynote addresses and panel deliberations centre on how innovators in emerging economies can co-develop global artificial intelligence and digital standards while translating lab-based research outputs into international statutory provisions. This translates WSIS’s policy aspiration for equitable global standard-setting into implementable practices, built upon the robust track record of mature digital public goods projects delivered by WSIS over the preceding decade.

Furthermore, the planned bilateral scientific partnerships, technology transfer arrangements and joint academic research tie into Action Line C11 that governs cross-border multilateral collaboration. Past flagship WSIS cooperation initiatives between advanced and emerging economies offer actionable insights to inform follow-up arrangements stemming from this session.

In aggregate, the conference turns WSIS’s textual action-line objectives into tangible deliverables, rectifies the underrepresentation of developing nations within global digital governance, and perpetuates WSIS’s long-standing post-2025 vision of bridging the global digital divide via inclusive advancement of global digital public goods.

Sustainable Development Goals

Goal 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all
Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 16: Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies

The conference entitled Scientists as Bridge Builders: Contributing Research Outcomes to Global Digital Public Goods advances delivery against core Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) laid out by the United Nations, in particular SDG 4, SDG 9, SDG 10 and SDG 17. Its mandate aligns closely with the WSIS 2015–2025 SDG framework as well as the post-2025 digital development vision of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

First and foremost, the event advances delivery of SDG 4 (Quality Education). Discussions held with universities worldwide on young researcher exchanges, joint academic research and talent development directly bolster capacity-building for research practitioners across developing nations, in turn strengthening outcomes for inclusive vocational training and advanced digital higher education. These efforts build upon a decade’s worth of capacity-building programming rolled out under the WSIS banner.

Second, it advances progress toward SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure). Centered on researchers from developing economies, the panel works to translate lab-derived research into globally applicable digital and artificial intelligence standards, partnering with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and relevant UN bodies to explore technology transfer and the development of digital public goods. Such collaborative work accelerates inclusive digital innovation and the rollout of sustainable digital infrastructure, a flagship deliverable stemming from WSIS’s 2015–2025 project portfolio.

Third, the session targets delivery of SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) by rectifying structural imbalances in global digital governance that have long confined innovators from developing countries to sidelines of policymaking. By empowering domestic tech pioneers to sit at the table for international rule-setting, the initiative narrows cross-border digital divides and dismantles inequitable representation in global digital policy formulation.

Lastly, all planned bilateral science and technology partnerships alongside multi-stakeholder dialogues with sovereign governments, international agencies, startup ecosystems and academic communities feed into delivery of SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). Bringing together former senior leadership from the UN, ITU and WIPO alongside ministerial representatives and research institutions will unlock multi-party collaborative frameworks to scale up global provision of digital public goods across jurisdictions.

GDC Objectives

Objective 1: Close all digital divides and accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals
Objective 2: Expand inclusion in and benefits from the digital economy for all
Objective 3: Foster an inclusive, open, safe and secure digital space that respects, protects and promotes human rights
Objective 5: Enhance international governance of artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity