IGF 2023 Open Forum #135 Enhancing the digital infrastructure for all

    Digital technologies are essential for economic growth, job creation, poverty reduction, and access to services, and digital connectivity is a foundation for digital economy.

    The development of digital technologies brings possibilities of people’s connectivity, and the new/emerging technology provides and complement existing digital infrastructure, with desirable speed, coherent and efficient services. Now, digital infrastructure is a foundation for all the economic/social activities. people recognize the importance of digitalization as a driving force for our prosperity and more the private investment is expected to come to digitalization.

    However, regardless of many efforts by the governments and other entities, there are still 2.7 billion people who have no access to the Internet. This is partly because current digital infrastructure does not cover the areas, such as rural or sparsely populated areas, where the services are unprofitable, but people also face the challenge of affordability, lack of knowledge and more.

    Furthermore, the rapid development of digital technologies makes people wide digital skill and literacy gaps, which would exclude certain population groups from the benefits of digitalization. There would be a risk of expanding gaps on digital development because of knowledge gaps among countries or regions. Broader and broader we use the digital technology in the various fields/sectors, more and more needs there would be to learn and get the expertise in digital.

    From this point, this open forum will focus on the way that we developed the digitalization during last decades, and challenges we are facing to enhance digitalization more inclusively, from the digital skills gap, for achieving open, secure, resilient, inclusive user-friendly digitalization.

    Questions would be as follows :

• What is the goal of digitalization?
• What role should the governments play for digitalization? What did? What should do?
• What is the barrier of promoting digitalization in terms of knowledge?
• How could we fill the knowledge gap of digitalization?
• How should the public sectors and private sectors contribute to promote digital economy in terms of digital knowledge gaps?

Finally, the session will focus on multi-stakeholders’ initiatives that would lead efforts for promoting inclusive Global Cooperation of filling the digital gaps including developing countries, and how the governments can contribute to such initiatives.