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For AI access for all, investment is the key, says Microsoft's Brad Smith
AI has immense potential, but guardrails alone won’t ensure its benefits reach everyone. According to Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, policies must ensure AI is safe and secure, but equitable access requires more—investment. Just as electricity took over a century to reach parts of the world, Smith says AI’s widespread adoption depends on economic strategies that go beyond values. It's a balance of ethics and action to ensure AI’s benefits are felt globally.
Smith spoke during GZERO’s Global Stage livestream, “Live from the United Nations: Securing our Digital Future,” an event produced in partnership between the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, or CRAF’d, and GZERO Media’s Global Stage series, sponsored by Microsoft.
"Access is a fundamental right" - Digital activist Vilas Dhar
The world is fast becoming increasingly digital, with 60% of global GDP driven by digital participation, but over two billion people still lack basic connectivity access.
Vilas Dhar, a leading activist for a more equitable tech-enabled world, emphasizes three elements contributing to this divide: connectivity, data gaps, and technical capacity.
“Access is a fundamental right and not something to be solved by delivering a last mile piece of fiber or connectivity.” he commented during a Global Stage livestream event at UN headquarters in New York on September 22, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Dhar also acknowledges the growing concern of artificial intelligence and the question of who will lead regulation.
“We live in a world where AI is in every headline, and we absolutely acknowledge that the vast majority of AI capacity is held in private sector tech companies. This is in and of itself a digital divide.”
The discussion was moderated by Nicholas Thompson of The Atlantic and was held by GZERO Media in collaboration with the United Nations, the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, and the Early Warnings for All initiative.
Watch the full Global Stage conversation: Can data and AI save lives and make the world safer?
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A customer sets-up M-Pesa money transfer servive inside a store operated by Kenyan's telecom operator Safaricom.
What We’re Watching: Boosting access, gender equality, and trust in the digital economy
More tha 3 billion people are still not operating within the digital economy, thus widening global inequality. We look at three issues the world’s grappling with to bring them on board.
Why internet access is everything
Scan any UN report’s “development goals” and the importance of expanding global internet access becomes obvious. To end poverty, boost healthcare, improve the quality of education, reduce all forms of inequality of opportunity, create jobs, power innovation, and enhance life in the world’s cities, more human beings need reliable access to the internet. That’s why it’s disappointing that half the world’s countries remain slow to introduce information and communications technologies (ICT) in schools and that too many poor countries still lack the mobile broadband needed to connect. The pandemic has been a good-news, bad-news story here. The virus has forced greater investment in ICT and provided people everywhere with obvious incentives to learn how to use it. But a difference in means ensures the gap between rich and poor countries has grown wider. The solution to these problems depends, as ever, on greater international investment. This isn’t charity, and it isn’t simply a matter of “fairness.” All countries need a stronger, more resilient, and more sustainable global economy. Shared prosperity depends now more than ever on access to the internet for everyone.
Start young to address gender digital divide
Tech advances have been a game-changer for millions of women previously excluded from participating in the digital economy. Still, research suggests that the gender digital divide is significant for women in emerging market economies, where around 41% of adult women use the internet compared to 53% of men. Indeed, research suggests that around 393 million women in developing countries do not even own a mobile phone. For women living in or around urban areas, in particular, this results in exclusion from large parts of the gig economy, the economic engine of bustling cities like New Delhi and Dhaka. Moreover, surveys show that even when women across South Asia or Africa do have mobile phone access, they often own less sophisticated “talk and text” devices. Consider that in India, for instance, 57% of the male population has used the internet compared to just 33% of females (based on 2019-2021 data), a dynamic reflected in Indian women’s low participation in the workforce. So what’s the solution? Start young. In partnership with the African Union, UN Women pioneered a program in 2018 to boost digital literacy among young girls throughout the continent, including teaching them to code. Still, in a continent where the median age is 18, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Putting trust in the digital economy
Digital advancements like artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and blockchain have revolutionized the way people deal with their finances. In 2021, blockchain technologies – the financial services platform used to trade cryptocurrencies – reached $6.6 billion and are projected to reach a whopping $19 billion by 2024. The financial sector accounts for almost one third of blockchain’s total value, meaning there is plenty of potential for it to still penetrate other sectors. But scarce digital trust has caused some societies to keep the fintech world at arm’s length. In Japan, for instance, more than 90% of those surveyed say cash is their primary payment method, according to Statista, with many citing security and privacy concerns as the reason for their preference. And the Japanese might have a point: the World Bank estimates that while the digital economy was valued at a whopping $14.5 trillion in 2021, efforts to contain cybercrime cost 41% of that. Private companies and governments have introduced stopgaps to limit identity theft, and some experts have proposed a digital identity system that would both reduce instances of cybercrime and boost users’ trust.
Lowering costs of poverty with digital & economic access
By the end of the decade, 70% of all new value in the global economy will come from digitally enabled businesses. The pandemic accelerated a push toward digitalization, especially in developing nations, yet nearly 4 billion people are still offline, and 1.4 billion don't have a bank account.
Expanding access to digital tools for individuals and small businesses is a no-brainer, but easier said than done. So, what can we do to expand digital trade further, come up with fairer and safer remittances and digital payments, and push to include everyone in tomorrow's digital-first economy?
To get some answers, GZERO hosted in partnership with Visa the livestream conversation "Closing the Gap: Digital Tools for Economic Empowerment," moderated by JJ Ramberg, co-founder of Goodpods and former host of MSNBC's Your Business.
Rubén Salazar, global head of Visa Direct, underscored how digital decency has become more acute in the post-pandemic world, yet many systems — for instance, payroll — remain analog. He also explained why unbanked people live in a vicious cycle of hardship because they can only operate in cash and lamented why cash-only networks make remittance fees so high — even as the UN goal wants to set a global 3% limit by 2030.
Ali Wyne, senior analyst for global macro-geopolitics at Eurasia Group, discussed how the discrepancy of having 1.7 billion people now cut off from the direction of travel of the global economy creates both an urgent imperative to go digital and an opportunity to narrow the gap. The likely geopolitical fallout from all of this happening after COVID and the food and energy crisis made worse by the war in Ukraine? Waves of political unrest that'll topple governments.
Dilip Ratha, head of KNOMAD and lead economist at the World Bank, shared his personal story of sending remittances to his family when he was still a student in the US. That's how he learned why it's so hard for migrants to send money back home — a lifeline for their families and remittance-dependent economies around the world.
Kati Suominen, founder and CEO of digital tech firm Nextrade Group, extolled the virtuous cycle of digital payments and access, which helps everyone the same way lack of it holds up all of us. She singled out paperless customs and logistics tech improvements as a major COVID silver lining for digital trade and offered her take on why — when they go digital — women-led small businesses often perform those led by men.
Usman Ahmed, head of global public affairs and strategic research at PayPal, offered some striking figures on what happens to small businesses when they embrace digital: sales triple by selling online, and quadruple by selling across borders. Does he see any downsides to a cashless economy? Nope, especially when it comes to the digital services created around it, but Ahmed recognized that unbanked people face tough challenges to ditch cash.
Watch live October 19: Can access to digital tools transform the world's economy?
Is digitization crucial to economic growth? GZERO Media is partnering with Visa to explore what it means when 70% of the global economy’s growth in the next decade is projected to come from digitally-enabled businesses – yet 3.7 billion people lack internet access. What are the tools and initiatives needed to bring more people into the digital economy?
Live on Wednesday, October 19, our expert panel will explore the impact of digitization on empowering consumers and small businesses. Please register to attend.
Participants:
- JJ Ramberg, Co-Founder, Goodpods, and former host of MSNBC's Your Business (moderator)
- Usman Ahmed, Head of Global Public Affairs and Strategic Research at PayPal Inc.
- Dilip Ratha, Head of KNOMAD and Lead Economist at the World Bank
- Ruben Salazar, Global Head of Visa Direct
- Kati Suominen, Founder and CEO, Nextrade Group
- Ali Wyne, Senior Analyst, Global Macro-Geopolitics, Eurasia Group
COVID's impact on education and its long-term geopolitical consequences: Gerald Butts
It's not just kids spending too much time on their screens because they got so used to doing everything remotely during the pandemic.
The impact of COVID-related educational disruption - and the growing inequality gap - could have big geopolitical fallout in the future. Why?
Because with diminished education comes fewer economic opportunities. That will likely exacerbate already deep divisions, says Eurasia Group Vice Chairman Gerald Butts.
As a result, he adds, watch out for more future disrupted politics around the world, both within countries and between countries.
Butts spoke during a Global Stage livestream on September 15, 2022: "Live from the UN General Assembly: Transforming Education"
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How to get students back on track after the Great Education Disruption
As the 77th UN General Assembly gets underway, much of the attention will go toward how to breathe new life into the Sustainable Development Goals. Why? Because the pandemic wiped out years of progress on meeting the 17 SDGs, especially No. 4: ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all.
COVID disrupted the lives of some 1.6 billion students around the world. Almost 150 million missed about half of in-person classes in 2020, and 24 million will never return to school.
So, how can we get education back on track before it's too late? Several experts weighed in during the Global Stage livestream conversation "Transforming Education" hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with Microsoft.
The data on the pandemic's crippling effect on education are not enough to get a real sense of the "picture of this time," said Leonardo Garnier, special adviser for the UN's Transforming Education Summit. Still, now we have an opportunity to invest in education like we've never done before — including in low-income countries where the government and businesses actually benefit from a cheap, uneducated labor force. Investing in education, Garnier added, is not only a moral imperative but a wise economic decision because it comes with big long-term payoffs like more educated women entering the workforce.
American Federation of Teachers Executive VP Evelyn DeJesus, for her part, explained how during the pandemic kids were walloped by multiple traumas, arguably the least of which was having to learn on Zoom. She believes it would have been a miracle if test scores hadn't dropped. While recognizing the failures of remote learning, DeJesus still thinks we need to spend big — no more belt-tightening — on broadband access for all, and resents how education has become a political football in America.
COVID's wrecking ball to education exacerbated divisions not only between but also within countries, which in the future will disrupt politics when people get angry from losing out on opportunities, said Eurasia Group Vice Chairman Gerald Butts. How can we stop this? With more global cooperation on education, which should be a "continuum" for everyone, everywhere.
Vickie Robinson, general manager of Microsoft's Airband Initiative to expand global broadband access, said that despite the disruptions caused by the abrupt switch to remote learning during the pandemic, we still need to invest in digital infrastructure because it might just happen again and we can't afford for our kids to lose any more school time. Who should do this? Robinson believes the responsibility for digital inclusion should be shared by governments and the private sector.
Finally, one silver lining from COVID on higher education is that for many workers it shifted the focus from going to the right school to having the right skills, noted Jonathan Rochelle, VP of Product Management, Learning Content & Instructor Experience at Linkedin. And it'll continue, since acquiring skills in lifelong learning must be "a moving target."
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Watch live on Sept 15: transforming education
Live from the UN General Assembly: Transforming Education
Thursday, September 15, 2022
11 AM ET / 8 AM PT / 5 PM CEST
https://www.gzeromedia.com/globalstage
Click through to WATCH today's livestream: During the pandemic, millions of children lost access to education. How can we leverage digital platforms to deliver better access to quality education, and ensure that those who put school on hold during the crisis are not left behind?
As the 77th session of the UN General Assembly gets underway, GZERO Media will host a Global Stage livestream, in partnership with Microsoft, to discuss “Transforming Education” on Thursday, September 15, at 8 am PDT / 11 am EDT.
Andrew Jack, global education editor for the Financial Times, will moderate this discussion with:
- Gerald Butts, Vice Chairman, Eurasia Group
- Evelyn DeJesus, Executive Vice President, American Federation of Teachers
- Leonardo Garnier, Special Adviser, United Nations "Transforming Education Summit"
- Vickie Robinson, General Manager, Microsoft Airband Initiative
- Jonathan Rochelle, VP of Product Management, Learning Content & Instructor Experience, Linkedin
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