Session
Organizer 1: Yuhyun Park, DQ Institute
Organizer 2: Melissa Sassi, IBM
Organizer 3: Justin Caso, IEEE
Speaker 1: Yuhyun Park, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Melissa Sassi, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 3: Justin Caso, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Melissa Sassi, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Yuhyun Park, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Justin Caso, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Round Table - U-shape - 60 Min
How do we ensure that Internet governance processes are truly inclusive? What needs to be done to enhance the capacity of different actors (and especially those in developing and least-developed countries) to actively contribute to such processed and whose responsibility is it?
How do we best equip the workforce of the 21st century with the necessary skills to take advantage of the new employment opportunities that will result from digital transformation? How do we ensure that these skills and employment opportunities are equitable to all and that the global south is equipment to participate on an equal footing?
GOAL 4: Quality Education
GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Description: Digital technology has been widely recognized as a vital tool to further sustainable development. But many people around the world still do not have the digital capacity, skills and resources required to meaningfully use these technologies and reap their benefits. Further, there are still gaps in practical tools, processes and measures, as well as in collaboration, which are impeding progress.
Each year, the world economy invests billions of dollars in developing digital literacy and digital skills. However, these efforts are not well coordinated, with many companies, governments and organizations each operating their respective programs under their own frameworks. This means that there is no globally shared understanding of and standard for what terms like digital skills and digital literacy mean. At this time, there is no shared baseline understanding of the level of digital skills in the world today, and as such it is difficult to address how to improve and sustain digital literacy.
As technology advances at unprecedented speed, with the potential for digital exclusion to increase just as rapidly, there is an urgent need to empower individuals with new forms of inter-connected digital competencies that can help them strengthen their ability for growth, productive employment and increased opportunities.
In order to help ensure advancement of SDG 4 for inclusive and equitable quality education to promote lifelong learning opportunities, an open, global standard to provide a framework that uses a shared language and that addresses digital literacy, skills and readiness at the intersection of identity, use, safety, security, emotional intelligence, literacy, communication and rights can have significant impact for stakeholders in both educational and technology communities. Global standards enable stakeholders to work synergistically rather than discretely to address similar sets of problems and by allowing the coordination of efforts both within and across sectors. To address these needs, the Coalition for Digital Intelligence (CDI), a platform created in association with the World Economic Forum (WEF) and formed jointly by the DQ Institute, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and IEEE Standards Association (IEEE), was started on 26 September 2018 with the aim of establishing a global, common language and set of norms around digital competencies, and coordinating global actions.
The session will explore these issues in an interactive dialogue where the speakers, along with the attendees, will openly discuss ideas and solutions that are addressing these pressing global and local issues facing so many today.
Expected Outcomes: The session expects to raise awareness of the need for a framework for digital literacy and intelligence by illustrating the work that will be highlighted during the session and for the participants to bring this work back to their local communities to increase meaningful digital inclusion.
Each speaker will have a facilitated discussion with the moderator for approximately five to seven minutes followed by a brief discussion amongst the moderator and the speakers for a total of twenty minutes. The remaining forty minutes will be dedicated to an interactive dialog, which will be facilitated by the onsite moderator, with the online and in situ participants working closely with the remote moderator to ensure full online participation
Relevance to Theme: The need for and challenges relative to addressing digital skills and literacy are a growing topic of attention as technology advances at great speed, as are the corresponding concerns that this can contribute to potentially increasing vs decreasing digital inclusion. Education, including inter-related skills for digital intelligence, is foundational and indispensable for achievement of sustainable development. ICTs have a major role in achieving the SDGs through their development and use, but if a robust set of corresponding skills do not accompany their development and use, social and economic growth will be hindered, and these technologies may not realize their full potential through the use of people around the globe. This session’s discussion can help inform the review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Relevance to Internet Governance: To empower people and ensure inclusiveness and equality and to prepare people for the next generation of the internet and its governance, digital competencies should not only include the technical skills one might expect but also comprehensive competencies that include digital safety, digital rights and digital emotional intelligence. These competencies should allow people to not just use a computer or smartphone, but to be prepared for the modern social and economic challenges and demands resulting from technological advances impacting the internet and beyond, and position themselves and communities for sustained, inclusive and sustainable growth with lifelong learning opportunities.
Each speaker will have a facilitated discussion with the moderator for approximately five to seven minutes followed by a brief discussion amongst the moderator and the speakers for a total of twenty minutes. The remaining forty minutes will be dedicated to an interactive dialog, which will be facilitated by the onsite moderator, with the online and in situ participants working closely with the remote moderator to ensure full online participation
Proposed Additional Tools: We intend to use various social media platforms to facilitate a dynamic discussion.