The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual 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.
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>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Hi, everyone. Am I audible?
>> YUNCAP KWANKUM: Yes, you are.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Okay. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening. Welcome to the Jobs Changing Jobs & Skillsets Post COVID ‑ How Internet can Help.
This is a session of the Dynamic Coalition on Internet and jobs. As a coalition, we are about liberating Internet for jobs upscaling and bridging the divide.
Today, what I'm going to do is walk you through the key findings of the report on Internet of Jobs 2021. This is our flagship report.
We did one last year.
Ideally, I should have been in Poland, but we all know the circumstances, and the Internet gives us the opportunity to connect online.
Some of the legends in the Internet space joining us today only the panel from the UK, India, China.
I see my panelists Gunjan with me.
He's a figure in the Silicon Valley. You can imagine the kind of leader he is in the Internet space.
>> GUNJAN SINHA: It's a pleasure to be here and on the panel.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: George Crooks is with us. He's a legend, he pioneered (?) And led the authority and sits on the board that has membership in 102 countries. A prominent leader. It's a pleasure to have him. Thank you for joining us.
I know you are in Poland, but we are hosting online. It is a mix for us. Glad to have you.
What I am going to do now is have the key findings of this report presented. Then we will jump into having your first reactions and question and answers. We will also take questions from the audience.
I'm going to share my screen and walk you through what the key findings of the report are.
Due to COVID, we had too many servers going on. There's always issues in terms of getting responses.
The other idea we have here is the respondents are those who have access to Internet. So there's that bias. And we did touch. We covered six continents, 46 countries, and we covered 87 cities and towns.
So in terms of the regions covered, I think we touched all major regions. We also looked at the age divide. You know, for all those on panel, we should be discussing this issue because this survey always throws up action areas for us. The IGF always being the key body for the Internet issues, we need to look at what brought up the divide.
If you look at this, 61 and older, it drastically drops.
We also looked at the respondents' profiles. One out of two respondents had full‑time employment, which is good. We had people who are working part‑time, people who are freelancers, people who are self‑employed, students, we had people who lost jobs during COVID, and retired looking for job and not looking for a job.
If you look at age‑wise choices, we see the divide that is the age‑base divide. We tried to look at these numbers from the age from the continent. Two or three tried to analyze this data. How did COVID impact ‑‑ this is a very key thing that I think all of us are concerned about. If you look at this, four out of 10 said it resulted in the degrees of income.
Almost four out of 10 also said their family member may have had a job loss.
Sadly, 12% lost a family member to COVID.
Almost two out of 10, the studies were impacted by COVID.
So COVID, on the other side, had this impact. We'll also see the other side in the subsequent part of this study finding.
So continent‑wise, I know our experts on the panel will (?) There's area of concern and an economic divide. You will see that every time we look at the continent‑wise analysis of this study, the poorer had lesser access when it comes to others developed countries.
Well, on the number side, there's a very good picture of uninterrupted supply of Internet, but those who don't, it is a concern. During COVID, in the last two years, we saw that the only way we connected during lockdowns was Internet. I think most of us have moved online, and we'll see that in the finding how things have changed.
I think for us, the other issue is the access of the Internet.
I know one of our young champions here is a firm believer in Internet as a public good, which we all do.
As I said, this study looked at people who have Internet. Hopefully, as COVID phases off, we'll start doing offline studies, we'll have an actual scenario out there.
Six out of 10 access from office, school, or university. The interesting access is the cell phone. This is an area where probably there is an action item for us to discuss once we look at these studies. What should we do to increase the access on mobile phones.
Continent‑wise, if you look at the numbers again, they tell the same story in terms of the (?) Having lesser responses and access both.
Quality and speed, if you look at the low and average quality, it is actually not a very good seen. When we look at this number continent‑wise, it worries us.
Only four out of 10 have high‑quality Internet.
I hope we get through this session without any hazards. There is always a concern. As the world is moving to 5g, we still only have four or five people that have equality, uninterrupted access with speed.
Again, when you look at numbers, continent‑wise, I think this is the story where we look at the average of high quality, low quality. It tells us where we are going.
Did the Internet access help you in the following.
We had it but didn't practice.
Eight out of 10 believe it has helped in education and studies and research. Four out of 10 in finding a job. Four out of 10 in businesses benefit out of Internet. Internet helping find a job, seven out of 10. That's a huge, huge impact, whether you're a student, whether you're self‑employed, whether you're in business. You cannot live without Internet. As I keep saying, you have to be aware of where the people are, and the people are on the Internet.
Technology always tells you it will need the human intervention.
Again, when we look at the continent‑wise, we can see the regions have better impact on both.
I think it's better to understand rather than a global estimate.
This is a very interesting (?). How many of the people who responded made money out of using the Internet? One out of two. That means the lives are quality impacted for those that can leverage the Internet for increasing income and such. So that's a huge number to look at.
Age‑wise, yes, there's an age divide we need to look at. This came out the last day of our study. People above 60 have an issue of how do they leverage. But here, from 25 to 50 ‑‑ as the (?) Decreases, I can with increasing longevity, we have a serious issue to address and an important one.
Again, we looked at continent‑wise. I think numbers follow the same trend. Do you believe your job or business will gradually become obsolete post‑COVID? This is an area I'm currently discussing regarding sustainable observation. This is a study we're going to release later. We're doing it across sectors. For this study, the responses we got from the so‑called 46 countries is that 20% believe yes, which I think is something for us to discuss and deliberate.
Age‑wise, we have a response of ‑‑ it decreases with age because I think the (?) Is also less when the (?) Increases for Internet.
So this same trend follows. Not any different.
Do you believe you have the skills to use ‑‑ so, interestingly, eight out of 10 say yes, but 17, 18% say, No, we don't have the skills.
What do they understand by the skills? Just operating the Internet or more than that? Because access to the Internet takes you to (?) Opportunities for leveraging technology.
Continent‑wise, this is the same. The developed nations have a response that follow a definite trend. And (?) Don't have that.
When it comes to the Internet, which of the following apply?
The best part is nine out of 10 believe the Internet will (?) And support businesses. That's a very important finding. Nine out of 10 (?) Help businesses go national and global. Eight out of 10 believe it will lead to more income. Eight out of 10 believe it will create jobs. We know we are seeing that. So eight out of 10 believe that businesses will be created that don't exist today.
I think it's something we should deliberate on. How can we avoid as much as we can?
So Maximize the opportunities to the Internet, it's about trainings that we see. You know, the Internet is expensive. 10% almost believe that.
20% of the respondents didn't know but they do use the Internet.
Six out of 10 believe that they don't have a conducive policy ecosystem to liberate the full potential of the Internet. And the interesting part is three out of 10 will start Internet‑based businesses this year. And almost (?) Currently own a business. I think if we look at this, this means a lot more going forward in the year next. We'll see that 30% increase in entrepreneur have Internet.
Again, we looked at the social media thing, and we looked at how it is benefitting. So seven out of 10 believe there are increases the chance of getting a job. Health and growth of business. It's nine out of 10. It's a very interesting angle of how social media has been utilized for business.
Same trend follows continent‑wise when we split it. The same trend follows when we look at age‑wise.
This slide, if we look, there's a shift in terms of what it means for the future. If you look at 50.55, one out of two people moved to work totally online in the current role.
If you add the second one, which is part of the (?) Line, eight out of 10 people actually change the way they work.
Will the change last? It's something we'll see.
But how much change? We'll have to see.
We know companies moved to (?) Days a week.
Same thing continent‑wise, the developing world has a different trend.
This is interesting if you look at the numbers. If you look at four to 10 hours, the people that use Internet, that's a good (?) Percent. If you look at 5 to 10 hours, it's 76%. That means that people are spending more time on the Net. This means there's a whole opportunity. You have to be in business where your customers are. People are in the virtual world. This is, again, a big, big change that is happening.
Again, age‑wise brings us to the age divide, that people above 60, you will see the numbers are different, and others as well.
So what needs to change? I think very clear messages that come out from this study is the need and training in courses to make sure they use this opportunity. A funding ecosystem, a start‑up ecosystem that has to be there, and uninterrupted access to Internet.
With rules and regulations, if you look, clearly people are thinking: What exactly are they looking at when it comes to the Internet?
We think this big companies have benefited you. So four out of 10 believe that they have made a significant contribution to boosting job opportunities and created wealth for the founders.
50% believe that they created wealth for the founders, but they have taken other jobs and businesses because of the large Big Tech. You know?
And this is something that we have to look, and I have made point at IGF meetings that we have to shape the future in a sense that do we want a large number of small companies on the Internet or a small number of large companies. That would drive the economy of the world and (?).
This is, again, the trend that follows continent‑wise.
So this will be uploaded, and the report will be available on the dynamic coalition jobs report based on these findings. I think it will be interesting to discuss.
I will stop the screen sharing and move to the Q&A.
Coming first is I'm going to ask my fellow panelists what is the first reaction on the findings of Internet of Jobs 2021.
Gunjan, to you first?
>> GUNJAN SINHA: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here on the panel.
One of the most telling revelations that came to me as you shared the very last question, the point that you made around do we need a large number of small companies to really drive the, you know, equitable wealth and distribution as the Internet presents, or do we want a small number of large companies?
As you look at some of the findings that you saw there, it was very clear that entrepreneurship is at the cornerstone of all of this stuff. If you look at the Internet ‑‑ and I've seen the Internet develop from 1990s, when I started right here in the Silicon Valley, you're creating real businesses led by an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
I do believe entrepreneurship can be trained. I grew up in India and moved to the United States. I know entrepreneurship can be trained, and you can start with very little to build something that is part of your dream and vision. We do need to have a funding ecosystem around it, whether it's seed funding, (?) Funding, (?) Funding, and I think public policy has to drive that. We need a strong ecosystem. All of this has to be made affordable.
As you do that and make this accessible, that's when you start to fulfill the real promise of the Internet, which is to not create the digital divide, to create digital inclusion when you have small economies building the future. That's where the public policy should be and collective where our thinking should be. That's what is going to harness the Internet going forward.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: What is your take when you look at these findings of the Internet and jobs, George Crooks?
>> GEORGE CROOKS: Thank you for inviting me. We're reading that connectivity and being able to be online is a social determinant of health, and we need to recognize that. This whole issue of inclusivity as opposed to exclusivity is something that we need to actually focus on.
I mean, I was interested in a number of the slides that people were actually asking for more enabling policies within their country and within their regions to support them both to access the Internet and to get the best value out of it.
Just as our last contributor said, it can be a great enabler. For me, this is about not engineering human connectivity and face‑to‑face interaction out of our daily lives. Far from it. It's actually about how we enable more high‑quality, face‑to‑face valued care where it's needed, so on and so forth.
For me, it's about intelligent design. It's about making sure that we don't just have accessibility. We make sure that the content is what people can access and be ensured and trusted. And we really have not understood how to do that in a safe‑but‑enough‑over‑regulated‑or‑over‑monitored way.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thank you. You have moved the systems and working at (?) Bodies, and you still engage actively across the world. What is your view on the findings?
>> YUNCAP KWANKUM: Thank you very much, Raj. I find them quite interesting. I totally agree with the comments made by the earlier speakers. I want to preface my remarks by saying that my main focus is health, much like George talked about social determinants of health. I see the health aspects. I look at everything pretty much through a health lens.
I saw some things in the report that I expected. The issues with connectivity, which, by the way, if you drill down further, there's one major, major piece that needs to come up. Probably wasn't part of your study. It's that of reliable electrical power. It's about everything that hurts the availability of the Internet in many developing countries. So that's something to be explored.
The other thing that I saw, which I expected and which really calls for attention, is the equity issue. It's whether you call it inclusivity or the digital divide, there's a need, you know, for equity, particularly in health. When you say health in the 21st century. You're talking about knowledge‑based systems for which the underpinning is information and communication technology. Much like in the 20th century, it was imaging systems. In the 19th century, it was pharmaceutical businesses.
In the 21st century, it's digital that drives. When you talk about digital, clearly the Internet is a huge part of that. So we cannot pretend to discuss universal health coverage, which means everyone having access to health service when they need it.
You cannot pretend to have that as a goal if you do not provide access. When we say "access," a lot of it comes through the Internet. The major part of work happens when people seek and get health services and it's communicating and information sharing.
There's the tactile and the pharmaceuticals and things that are tangible, but a huge part underlines health interactions, and that's information and sharing.
So I see a lot of work to be done. Getting back briefly to the equity issues. The message that comes through very clearly is equal treatment does not mean equal outcomes. That work needs to be done in the area of equity.
Thank you.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thank you. So very interesting. I think that's what happens when you get (?).
If you don't have electricity, what about Internet?
Moving this to Wathagi Ndungu, what is your opinion.
>> WATHAGI NDUNGU: I would have to agree with the other speakers. What I found interesting, is you speak about the (?) As the others said. At the start of the pandemic, I was living in Kenya. In the middle of the pandemic that is still ongoing, I moved to Germany. I could really definitely tell the difference in the two countries and what was happening. It made me also have another definition of what the Global South is because the city that I did actually move into in Germany, I felt I was more in the south than when I was living in Kenya because I was living in the capital, and the connectivity was much lower and different than here.
In terms of the skills gap, I have noticed that the challenges you brought out in your report, there's like a variety of challenges, technical challenges, cultural, and also like capacity challenges.
The UK has been trying to fill job vacancies, and 80% are jobs that require digital skills. The only problem is that these companies don't want to give chances to the older ‑‑ to adults. They only want to give learning opportunities to younger people. It doesn't make sense because now we're going through a very strange period where people need reskilling and upskilling, and I like this report pointed it out. It's a thing that needs to be addressed.
I think employers should offer to reskill people or upskill and change skills and find ways probably even if they're not very digital, ways to navigate how to teach this other generation that doesn't really, really want to probably be tech savvy. I use that loosely.
The big thing that I captured in this report, the digital skills really needs to be evaluated, and we have to figure out how to deal with it.
Thanks.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thanks for that, Wathagi.
We have been talk about multiple things, and the way the world is, I think not only are the economic models was the Internet models will have to undergo a paradigm shift.
Jobs in digital space, you default to needing digital skills if you're in anything today.
Now, this brings me ‑‑ I looked at this report. I looked at every aspect of this report and the last year's report. I see that the divide in the Internet world has multiple dimensions. It has a policy divide. It has a quality divide. It has an age divide. It has a gender divide.
The last report shows that the woman are the worst sufferers because they're left behind in the digital world. There's a divide between rich and poor nations. The rich nations, obviously, stand to benefit. Most of the people on my panel today are the people that have moved from one world to the other.
This brings me to a passport point. I remember speaking in the UN assembly hall in 2011. 10 years ago. They were saying we would be the generation that would not take care of children.
We're in a different situation. We're not taking care of the older generation.
This brings me to another question. Where the people over the age of 60 have a serious handicap in terms of not being upskilled or trained. As we see, the longevity increases, the inclusiveness with regard to Internet decreases because you're left behind. There's no courses for you.
You brought out this important point. You started out by saying online education is the way to go, and that's what we need.
So what are the things that you would suggest we take care of? The older adult for seniors, whatever name you call them. Because we would have to take care of them above the age of 60. They will live for 30 years. That's almost half their age.
>> GUNJAN SINHA: I would say the Internet, as I said, is the great connectivity point. If you start to think about online models where you can actually have the seniors in the society, people above 60, connected economically, it does a couple of things there. From a health perspective, their engagement gives them economic income, but it also gives them engagement, which is an important part of their overall ability to take care of the health.
So I come back to the economics of how do we engage these people who have done many things in their lives? Now they're above 60. In that age group, if question example the online mentoring, education, and engagement, tap into their wealth of knowledge and experience and create an engagement of fractional work, freelanced work, and that work gives them engagement. It's been very documented that people who are engaged, rather than not engaged, you know, help ‑‑ end up living healthier lives because it gives them an occupation, gives them economic income. Gives them the ability to access health care and other things that come with economic ability.
So I really go back to how do we connect the Internet and have a network of online resources and education for the seniors? Mentoring for the seniors? This mentoring can happen by other seniors who are in privileged countries and privileged parts but also from younger generations as a giveback because it's the trust between the younger generation and the older generation to engage in a social fabric that the Internet can actually create.
I can totally envision a future where younger generations are mentoring the seniors to help them engage better and build an economic platform for the seniors.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Excellent. I think this can be a big leveler, and this brings us back to the point that we, as humans, I think we need to ‑‑ we cannot close our eyes to the reality that with us.
George, your views on how the bridge this divide?
>> GEORGE CROOKS: I think this is a really important point. What was said earlier, we need to unlock the knowledge, skills, and experience that each one of us, whatever position in society, has through that lived experience and make that available to the community. It is about being valued and feeling value that actually promotes well‑being.
Now, we all know that user‑centered design is key to unlocking that, and we really have invested the time and effort in doing that. We design, wherever you are in the world, most public services that are configured in a way that you have to change the way that you interact with the service to be able to access it. We need to be able to access services on our own terms. We need to be able to access education and training on our own terms.
We know that people now learn best through watching videos, not reading books or sitting in a lecture hall. We need to make those types of things accessible.
And the Internet can do that. But we need to talk the language that people can understand and not talk down to people.
So for me, it all comes down to user‑centered design. And however you cut it, there needs to be brave policy leadership wherever you are in the world to drive that forward as well as building on bottom‑up support. So it's all about communities. They may be geographical communities, but what the Internet does, it allows you to bring together communities of interest to actually empower, engage, and enable.
I just think there's a great opportunity. We just need to realize how to harness it properly.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thank you, Sir Brooks. We need to speak the language that people understand. The point he makes is more profound when you consider the age, the experience, and the experience for the new world, which is totally different. We talk about (?) Today, something we didn't talk about three years ago. Three weeks ago, we made it like a big thing. Everyone is talk about (?).
Yuncap, what do you feel? We need to avoid a big catastrophe. If we leave these people behind, unskilled, not knowing the Internet and the way we're seeing the usage, we would be creating physical health problem, a mental health problem. How do we address that?
>> YUNCAP KWANKUM: Thanks again, Raj. I think very good points have been made by the previous speakers about how to engage the elderly. Let me just underscore these recommendations made earlier. If you're looking at the European Commission's Active and Healthy Aging, it's a model that rests on a number of platforms. Two of those platforms are lifelong learning and community engagement. So very much like my colleague s are telling us.
If you want to live longer, you need to engage in life. Food, nutrition, health care services, et cetera, et cetera, but engagement and lifelong learning.
So I think the solution stems from there. As George said, if there's bold leadership at the policy level to provide the environment within which this lifelong learning takes place, then we're off to a good start.
I think it's quite intriguing that for the longest time, we've been trumpeting the value of people‑centered health services, for quite some time, if you look at what that meant was, when a person went to a health setting, the description of people‑centered health services started with what the services would do, could offer the patient, as opposed to ‑‑ I think what you were saying, George ‑‑ is what does the patient want, and where can they get those services?
It's a totally different mindset from looking at everything from what the services do as opposed to what people actually want. Guess what. The most abundant resource in the health system is the people who serve various roles. They can be the clients. I don't like the word "patients." They can be the clients. They can sometimes be providers. They can sometimes be stewards of the system. These are the three major categories people play in health service. Everybody has an interest in making sure that we leverage the power of technology to improve all aspects of the health system.
How do you do that? For seniors, I have a vested interest in this because I'm one myself. I think seniors, we have so much to offer. Going back to knowledge, let's just take three of the ‑‑ if you're not a senior, please forgive me. Let's take the three gentlemen, the three of us, who I think are seniors here, if George knew everything that I knew and I knew everything that George knows and our colleague from California knows, just think about the power.
So knowledge sharing, in my view, is the one paradigm that can make us achieve leaps, quantum leaps in whatever we want to address, in the health space for sure, because of two things. One is that we use much more ‑‑ only a tiny fraction of what we know.
So we need to bridge what we used to call the (?) Gap. Apply what we know, and have more people share what we know with other people. If we did those two little things, I think we would achieve so much more.
So I will end there for now, but when you get down to actual jobs creation, we also have suggestions that I would make, I hope, later in the program.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thanks, Yuncap.
If I look at groups, all at what they're suggesting, Internet can apply quantum power to solve the biggest problems of humanity. But you need to engage.
>> WATHAGI NDUNGU: Yes.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: So as a young person, as a policy fellow, what do you see?
>> WATHAGI NDUNGU: I really like the suggestions ‑‑ the opinions from all the gentlemen, the opinions that have been given. I especially like the citizen‑centered approach. I think that's truly the way to go. What is the purpose for all? We have to look at the citizen. I love that I didn't even know it was one of the UN goals, harnessing technology to enable lifelong learning. I think that's really important for people in all stages of life, in general.
Everyone, it's important to be able to use the tools that we all have around us to be able to enhance our lifelong learning. This brings me to an example of when I moved from Kenya to Germany, and my doctor couldn't send me an email because he didn't know how to use an email. This was my first time in seeing a fax machine. They know technology. There's just different types of technology now. It was really a very new experience. I have never seen a fax machine in my life. And I saw one.
So, actually, I was taught how to use a fax machine. So somebody else can be shown how to use an email.
So I think we can just all use technology in a different way. The first thing, which I think was the spirit of every speaker's point. We have to see what everybody needs and see how we can set up plans to build a workforce environment digitally to improve how things work in the future.
For example, people might have different interests at different stages of life. We've seen from the 1900s or even the 1960s, '70s, people had to have, like, a college degree or whatever. These days, you can be hired without a college degree. In these days, young people are making money without a degree on TikTok.
I feel I have been the same way in my career. I believe people are different at different stages of their lives. We cannot expect the same tailor or same graphic designer to want to be a graphic designer later.
So we need to see what needs to be changed. Do we need to reskill them, upskill them?
That's what I think.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: I was one of the nine people involved in drafting the policy. I totally agree with what you're saying. I think the time of the (?) Is done. Gunjan mentioned this. Online education is the way to go. I think the time has come for us to relook at education beyond four walls. It's five fingers. Digits is fingers. So that's where it is. The digital is not just about the world. It's about these digits.
Having said that, the study said that half of the people have moved fully online. If you look at people moving the jobs online, it's about 80%. Does this mean the jobs will change? It used to be 9:00 to 5:00.
Gunjan, you're a pioneer in this space and have been a leader in this space. Looking at this journey of almost four decades, do you think things will change in the age of the Internet? Is that going to change and if so, what would that mean?
>> GUNJAN SINHA: Yeah. That's a great question, Dr. Gupta. I do think that what Internet presents is the availability for an amazing online collaboration, and jobs that were originally part of monolithic jobs are going to become collaborative workflows. What I mean by that is, you know, three of us ‑‑ you know, one could be ‑‑ three people could come together to do something in a faster, better, cheaper way, in a more effective and efficient way to make something happen that traditionally would have been one person's contribution, in a more monolithic sense of the word "jobs."
So I think it's more task‑oriented, freelance‑oriented environment and tethered by software and technology that allows people to collaborate effectively on literally microtasks, and that fragmentation will lead to hyperspecialization, and the hyperspecialization is a very powerful concept because if all of us can specialize in our little things that we really become good at, and we can stitch that together on demand in the cloud, coming together to solve a particular problem or deliver a particular task, that's where the future is in my mind.
So microtasks and hyperspecialization, I think that's where things are going as I see the power of the Internet ahead of us.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Very important and deep statement that you made. If I understand it correctly, the jobs in office are moving to jobs on the cloud, which effectively means collaboration, microjobs specific, task‑oriented, and it's projects not jobs. It's a big transition, but that's where the jobs have moved now.
George Crooks, what do you think?
>> GEORGE CROOKS: We begin to stop noticing the change because it is so subtle but so large. So, for example, everyone who is part of today's session, 10 years ago, we were using money as currency in our purses or wallets or pockets. I can't remember the last time I paid for anything using coins. It is all now online.
The COVID pandemic has meant that we have been celebrating family, special occasions virtually. We've been ordering meals from some of the best restaurants in the UK that get delivered to your house.
So we're not only creating economic advantage through new online services, we're also creating manual and other jobs supporting that cloud‑based infrastructure.
And this is the way we're going to go.
But really going back to the last point, which is really important. We have the issues of climate change and equity. We have the challenge around the coronavirus. And that needs collaboration. The days of us being able to rely on the knowledge within our own communities, within our own countries are over. The virus, for example, doesn't respect international boundaries. Knowledge should not respect international boundaries.
A bit like how we used to deal with our money in the past, anything that was valuable we locked up in a physical building that we call a bank. People were ridiculous and bought Great masters walls of art, and rather than to put it in the house, they put it in a vault, and no one got to see it.
That's what we've done with our (?) You don't need to have an I.Q. of 150. It's about being able to share that livid experience that is fundamentally important.
And the health care system, we have demonstrated that a newly diagnosed diabetic, aged 50, who is a manual worker in the industry, has difficulty relating to a 25‑year‑old, young doctor telling them how to manage their diabetes. But if we put them in another worker in the industry who has diabetes who then explains how they manage it in their day‑to‑day life ‑‑ because they understand the lived experience of an individual ‑‑ these things are more powerful and more effective.
So we have to stop thinking in the way we have in the past and really open our minds to the new opportunities.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thank you. Thank you.
Yuncap, we also know the change that's happening. We're still people, but we are machine learning. Things keep advancing. How do you see, you know, the definition of jobs changing in your stream in the times to come? Will we need more professionals like doctors, nurses, physical therapists, or with machines doing the job, how do we bridge those divides?
>> YUNCAP KWANKUM: Thanks, Raj. Very key question.
Before I respond the that, just echo and thing the speakers. The idea of collaboration is just fundamental and capital. I want to inform everyone that the International For Society (?) Has the initiative called the Global Knowledge Commons. It's based on the principle of answering the question: Who is doing what? Where? How well is it working? What can we learn from it? What can we share and reuse from it?
I think it's a very powerful paradigm. We would like others to join us in this effort.
Now to your question. I think if you look at what we've learned from the pandemic, COVID has taught us a lot. I think the major lesson is that we can do so much more than we used to think before from wherever we are.
So the idea of tele ‑‑ and you can add whatever suffix you want ‑‑ teledining, whatever suffix you want, and there's a future in it because the pandemic, I believe, has served as a global proof of concept that question do these things even from wherever we are.
If you translate that into the health sector, for example, you notice that, in health, I think the job function are very disjointed. You have functions that are performed by a doctor, functions performed by a nurse, functions performed by this.
I think we need to go and the Internet and future will let us go in that direction, where we have many more categories to fill the gaps between the various existing categories. I give you a clear example. In many African health systems, there is no such position as a physician assistant. You either see a doctor or a nurse. We need that space between the two sets of functions covered by a professional, recognized professional.
Pretty much going to what Gunjan pointed out. Everybody has a tiny sector to perform to keep a society healthy. And they specialize in that bit, but to borrow your term, you stitch them together with connectivity. So it's a wonderful idea to look at, but it's a long way to get there. So I think that's what the future holds.
In health alone, the Internet has the possibility to create so, so many opportunities for work. We know now that pandemics are going to occur and occur and occur again. So pandemic preparedness alone provides opportunities for remote monitoring of so many parameters. There are jobs to be created in these areas. Developing the devices to capture sensors, to capture the biological and physiological data to systems, to AI, for example, to analyze and make predictions and do models. There's so much more that we can do with the Internet in the health system, and this would create many positions, as I said.
This is just a small example. There are many others that one can think of. So I think the automation is not going to replace health workers, not by a long shot. What the automation would do is transform them, much like the word processor did not obviate the need for a secretary. It transformed into an executive assistant. It's a nice title. Sound more impressive.
So that's what's going to happen as well, where the health workers are going to be transformed into ePractitioners, and the clients, themselves, are going to be transformed from passive observers in the health ‑‑ passive observers to active participants in the therapeutic or health restoration processes that they engage in.
So I think it's a win‑win for all of us.
Thank you.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thanks, Gunjan. You're always brilliant in articulating how technology helps.
Wathagi, you're the future. You're very active on IGF. I've been seeing you for a couple of years. Where do you see yourself being ready to do in the next five years, given where automation is growing?
>> WATHAGI NDUNGU: Thank you very much.
First off, I would like to thank the previous speakers. That was very enlightening. I like that about the processor. We still use a contents, despite the fact that we have spreadsheets. So it was really good.
So the Internet is really not taking over jobs. It's just changing jobs.
So in answering you, there was in report that was done by the World Economic Forum where they were checking how many job losses will occur because of digitalization.
So job losses were estimated to be about 5 to 10 million. And then they further did another research where they were looking at how many jobs will be created. The jobs were estimated to be created by the digitization, they were 58 million.
So when you compare those figures, we can just say ‑‑ if you're a totalitarian, you will say let's have the models (?) I also feel what will happen to these people who lost their jobs. We need to find a way to make sure they do something. As we've been talking, the whole theme of this panel has been we have to make sure everybody is included. Inclusivity is a running thing. We have to think about how to include them.
At the same time, I see problems that will occur in the future because of digitization. We're already in a pandemic, a physical pandemic. There's been talk that cybercrime has been rising by 900 % or something in countries like the U.S. There's been many talks of a cyberpandemic.
But I think the thing with the COVID pandemic was lack of preparation.
I think if we're going to digitalize ‑‑ and we want to move to didn't and stuff, how are we going to prepare? Because we're talking about the future of work; space flight how are we going to occur for future occurrences?
How are we going to prepare for the cyberpandemic? People have said it could literally bring down the grid, the power grid ‑‑ conspiracy theories. If something like that were to happen, since we want the future of work to be digital and everybody included, what do we do then?
Everybody knows: Wake up, sit at my computer, touch my lap.
Then solving how to make salty water drinkable or something? Things are not completely digital.
So how I see it in the future, I don't feel that digitalization and building digital skills is to replace the physical element of life. I feel like it's to improve it and make it better.
So my suggestion would probably be smart (?) Like the way we do smart city. Smart work. Smart work is for the benefit of building and increasing the livelihood of the citizens. So as long as it's making the lives of the citizen better, I think we go with it. At the same time, digitalization has its own outcomes. Also, climate change is surprisingly ‑‑ one of the sessions I attended on Tuesday. Too much data processing is bad for climate. I attended a session called green data processing. That's something I had never thought about.
My mind is that at the same time we're like, Oh, yes, let's do digitalization. I want to do stuff online. We have to think of is ‑‑ we have to think of how far is it making things better? And strike a balance.
I don't enjoy the remote work. I enjoy the smart work. Smart work means, okay, I am comfortable. I can take a shower on my lunch break or coffee break. I can walk my dog. It's more about improved quality of life. If I have a baby, I will take care of it or something like that.
So I would be more of the idea that digitalization in the next few years will improve the quality of work, and then we'll be working smart, in quotes, as opposed to remote work. Let's all stay home and be on our devices, if you get what I mean.
So, in the future, I do love working remotely and have been for a couple of years, but I feel that I have had a better quality of life when I define my boundaries. Like, do we have (?) At 4:00 or 5:00, that you are not contacted ‑‑ there's just so much more to digitalization than just, Oh, yeah, you have Internet and computer or whatever, and you can just work.
So I feel like there's just different arenas. And we'll have to ‑‑ we keep saying that that's like a term that I will now adopt ‑‑ citizen‑centric? It's putting the person in the middle and looking at solutions that are more for the person and not for innovation. Because the point of innovation is to make the life of the person, at the end of the day, better.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thanks for that.
We have the next 10 minutes, three questions are still to be answered.
We have to also answer the hard questions.
I think in the next questions, I expect my panelists to be brief, one minute.
So the first question is: We have seen the divide. Ready to find solutions. With this kind of illustrious panel, we can let that question go. So knowing the divide we have, do we need a solution like the U.S. (?) Which India has ‑‑ I'm sure others countries have. It's called the (?) The option of the spectrum for the Internet, a part of the money is retain and brought back to rural areas for connectivity there.
With something like that in the world, an institution like IGF recommends, you know, let's liberate this.
So, Gunjan, over to you. Do we need this for the world?
You're on mute, Gunjan.
Gunjan, you're on mute.
>> GUNJAN SINHA: Hold on a second. Can you guys hear me?
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Yes.
>> GUNJAN SINHA: That's a great question. I've been thinking about that. The Internet is here. I've talked about the challenge, the data divide. I just want to take 30 seconds to highlight one of the best tectonic shifts happening with the admin of ESG, environmental and social governance. We touched upon where the world is today with the risks of climate, the responsibility that we have to work the society, the social governance and creating a more equitable and just platform for all the people in the world, not just for a select few.
So when you start to think about the intersection and ESG and you couple that with making ESG the umbrella, and that could also be an organization. Like, in the past, we have had organizations like the World Bank created for specific purposes. There have been organizations created for a specific agenda, but if you take the ESG and created a platform organization whose charter is to really drive environmental and social governance globally, at scale, leveraging the power of the Internet and bringing down the digital divide, in that process creating a world which is environmentally sustainable and sustainable is a keyword here, I think that is where lies the answer.
Our risks right now are inherent to the planet. There is no plan B. We need to take care of this planet.
Organizations like the UN got created after the world wars and so forth. I think the very existence (?) I would charge the power of the Internet to look at the real promise at scale, to create equity, diversity and inclusion, and use that as a platform organization.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: We have exactly five minutes left.
I will go to key takeaways, starting with each one.
We have to minute the proceedings to get uploaded.
Wathagi, your thoughts on the Internet and job scenario?
>> WATHAGI NDUNGU: The Internet and job scenario, I think it's very promising. Contrary to popular belief, because of what you said, it got to my mind. I don't think we need more organizations because we have already too many. What are they doing? Why are they not doing stuff? And they should be doing things.
So we will just have organizations for the sake of having them, and they should actually be doing things. I think there's so many organizations in this field that can work together to bridge the divide.
And the other thing, I think, that education is really important. There's many educational programs that provide incentives for all the people or any ‑‑ someone who is unemployed. There's this running ad that always happens. Here, come learn for free and then get a job, and then you can only pay us once we have a job and we give you a job.
So creating such a sphere with jobs is important, and I feel like in the future, if we have more people‑centric, user‑centric approach, we'll have ‑‑
(Overlapping speakers)
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: I need to close. You get 30 seconds for takeaways. Yuncap?
>> YUNCAP KWANKUM: My takeaway is the Internet is great for the economy, period, and all sectors of the economy, but to get the most out of it, we need to learn from one another; and, hence, my plea for a Global Knowledge Commons.
There's nothing on this planet that has not been fazed by somebody else somewhere, and solutions have already been identified or at least can contribute to solutions. So sharing, sharing, sharing.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thanks.
George Crooks, for you, what are your key takeaways for this session.
>> GEORGE CROOKS: Okay. Three things: Connectivity should be recognized as one of the basic utilities along water, electricity, and sanitation.
Second, we need ICT architectures that put the citizen at the heart of everything we do and the point of data connectivity for the future. That's the second one.
And the third thing, the key enabler, is brave and bold leadership to take this agenda forward across all nations.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thanking.
Gunjan, you have 30 seconds.
>> GUNJAN SINHA: I said it. I'm a big believer in entrepreneurship, online education. If you intersect all of that to help break the digital divide, I think that's where the answers lie, and that's where we should be focused on collectively as a Civil Society.
>> RAJENDRA PRATAP GUPTA: Thanks, Gunjan. A very actionable discussion. I will follow through on all of this with our report and later in connecting with each one of you.
I think (?) For jobs upscaling and make the world a better (?) Sustainability.
Thanks, everybody, so much.
Thanks to IGF for giving us a platform to shape our views.
>> WATHAGI NDUNGU: Thank you very much. Ciao!