ITU Telecom World

The one policy action that would do the most to accelerate African development is connecting the unconnected

What do Africa’s policymakers know about 5G?  They know a deep reserve of calm is required to negotiate with international technology companies whose enthusiasm, ambition, and almighty self-belief makes them irresistible and exhausting all at once. They know to smile bravely as they are (again) reminded that only one in five Africans has access to the internet. They know about that infamous divide which reduces economic growth and curtails the developmental benefits that connectivity could provide to many millions of their compatriots – the most oft-quoted and compelling statistic is from a study conducted by the World Bank which concludes that a 10% increase in broadband penetration rates would lead to a 1.38% increase in GDP in developing economies.

They also know about ambition, for their citizens and their futures. African countries already have shown that they can rival or even surpass their industrialized counterparts when leveraging mobile technology: 3G connectivity enabled M-Pesa services in Africa, which allowed Kenya to grow financial inclusion amongst its poorest from 21% to 63% in just three years.  Fast adoption of equipment and technical standards allowed some telecommunications deployments to move at twice the rollout speed of fully developed countries. Now, as 5G appears on the horizon, Africa’s policymakers realize that they need to move quickly to leverage its benefits and empower their citizens to spur innovation.

The benefits

IHS Markit have estimated that by 2035, 5G will enable $12.3 trillion of global output and make total contributions to global GDP equivalent to an economy the size of India’s. They also predict that by 2035, the global 5G value chain will generate output of $3.5 trillion and support 22 million jobs worldwide. This is in part because 5G will boost the competitiveness of local businesses, allowing Africa to compete regionally and on a global level.

African policymakers also know that 5G networks can enable a long-term digital transformation and contribute to the emergence of smart societies across Africa. Unlike legacy networks, the technology will enable much greater access to big data sets and the capacity, speed and reliable connections needed to realize the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals on a national and regional basis. Innovative uses of 5G in healthcare and education will help educate the 60% of African teens between the ages of 15 and 17 who are out of school and will extend the reach of healthcare workers to a continent where only 3% of the world’s health workers reside.

The challenges

Implementation of 5G and reaping the benefits it confers requires technology enabling infrastructure; no services are possible without the infrastructure in place. In Africa, that can often prove difficult. The African Development Bank estimates that poor infrastructure shaves up to 2% off Africa’s average per capita growth rates. For decades, most countries in the region have seen only minimal investment in legacy networks. It is no coincidence that many African countries experience regular power outages from the lack of investment in power grids, forcing companies to purchase expensive, carbon-negative diesel-operated power generators.

Solving the “infrastructure versus services issue” remains an arduous task, akin to the “chicken and egg” conundrum. Many organisations and consumers are willing to pay for the services but not for the infrastructure. Although purveyors of 5G technologies need to look beyond Africa’s legacy of poor power grids and communication infrastructure, governments in the region should take the lead in addressing the infrastructure solutions as it is unlikely that the relatively nascent 5G market can provide a solution on its own in the near term.

How to get there

Companies should not be put off by the received wisdom that “the view from the ground remains challenging” in Africa. Despite a lot of commentary from those who seldom visit the continent, African regulators behave very much like their counterparts elsewhere in the world: they frequently levy fees designed to raise revenue or protect incumbents, they opt for analysis that favors their perspective of the moment, they seek to understand how new market entrants will affect market structure, and have some clear requirements in respect of access to communications and data. Like invasive species, these are not practices that were born in Africa.

Where African policymakers can apply best practice in a way that properly rewards their citizens and good corporate actors is to make the ground fertile for the most innovative solutions. Today is not the moment to regulate all technology propositions, but we are past the time when the infrastructure to support them needs to be enabled. Certain preconditions are needed for the benefits of 5G to take root:

1. Being open to infrastructure investment from those who also stand to make a return on it: the corollary to this is to be suspicious of investment terms that seem too generous or that accrue to a far-away sovereign power.
2. Experimenting and inviting innovation: this brings investment to the country as a testbed, and fosters a can-do, flexible regulatory regime that can be tightened up once 5G is enabled.
3. Choosing technologies that do more than one thing: where solutions exist to drive pico- or nano-cell development and enhance the reach of the power grid, pick them.
4. Demanding more from infrastructure providers: partner with those who have solutions that are not just for the 20% of your urban population who pay enormous data and voice bills and with those that have made, or are willing to make, investment in smart-city know-how, rural broadband solutions, and long-lived, ruggidized solutions that are geared to the African market.
5. Leapfrogging policy decisions and technology: draw on pioneering policymaking to make the case for greater antenna density that is at the heart of realizing 5G.

If there is anything left to tell African policymakers after we have all proffered our advice, it is to be bold, demanding and to remain ambitious. Much of the private sector has quietly felt bullish about Africa’s ICT industry for a long time. Now is time for those with the right 5G solutions to show it.

Ravi will be speaking at the Forum session “Leapfrogging to 5G?” on Monday 10 September at ITU Telecom World 2018

Why the Fourth Industrial Revolution makes a duty of care essential for everyone

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been termed a “Digital Quake”.  This term powerfully illustrates the impact of AI on our lives.

There is a tendency for people to think that AI does not impact them. But anyone who uses a smartphone or even just e-mail is impacted by AI several times a day. In South Africa alone, the estimated number of smartphones in use is 20.3 million (www.statista.com), which is approximately one-third of the population. Safe to say then, that a significant portion of any population – in a developing or developed country – is using AI to some extent.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution brings us cyber-physical systems, driven by AI and robotics – these systems connect the physical and the digital.

Not many years ago, if an average user or consumer was infected by a virus or had their system breached in some way, it only affected one device.  The likelihood of essential information – such as bank account details – being compromised was small, unless the user gave someone these details after a phishing attack for example. Not so today, where our homes and devices are interconnected – and it’s not just data the “black hat” hackers can steal. It is increasingly more common for alarm systems to be connected to a digital device, giving the user the convenience of activating or deactivating alarms remotely. However, if their system is hacked, thieves can do the same.

Everyone must exercise a duty of care when using digital technologies. Understanding privacy and security is an essential skill in the 21^st century and has become even more critical in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It’s astounding that many (probably most) people still have very insecure passwords, and don’t have even basic virus protection on their devices.  Perhaps people in work have been accustomed to someone else being responsible for the security of information. But there is no-one who takes care of personal digital security. I always liken it to keeping yourself and your family safe in the physical world. You do all you can to protect yourself, and only call on the police when things go wrong. You don’t say “Oh, the police force has a duty of care to keep me safe, so I don’t have to do anything. “

Privacy and security is about more than just strong passwords and virus protection, though.  Users should find ways to ensure that their service providers are trustworthy. They can and should expect their governments to pass laws that ensure compliance and accountability: but again, the final duty of care is with the individual.

IFIP IP3 launched the iDOCED (ifip Duty of Care in Everything Digital) campaign at the end of 2016. We are passionate about spreading this message. We believe a duty of care, together with trustworthy computing that is expected from IT professionals, will deliver the significant advantages of AI, which includes economic benefits, and mitigate any potential harm. I look forward very much to exploring this further in the discussion on “Artificial Intelligence: impact and ownership” at ITU Telecom World 2018 in Durban this September.”

Once again, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has the privilege of being involved in ITU Telecom World, this year in Durban, South Africa.

This year, the ICANN organization will be part of a discussion on “Strengthening Collaboration in Data Protection,” which will be taking place on Thursday 13 September. During this session, we will have the opportunity to outline how we have adapted our own operations, and those of registries and registrars that deal with generic domain names, to be compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, widely known as the GDPR. While registries and registrars must continue to collect all contact information for domain name registrations, they may no longer make public in the WHOIS service any personal information in the administrative, technical or contact fields. The restrictions apply to any registrations linked to the European Economic Area. This change to the WHOIS system has sparked important conversations in our community about who can gain access to non-public data and under what circumstances.

As our discussions regarding the impact of the GDPR continue to move forward, ITU Telecom World 2018 provides us with an opportunity to continue the productive conversations with stakeholders and the wider internet community. We encourage you to follow the latest news on ICANN’s efforts in this arena at our Data Protection/Privacy Issues page.

The internet and the impact it is having on people from all walks of life has become increasingly important. New policies, regulations and legislation are being introduced to address aspects of privacy, access, intellectual property rights and surveillance, among others.

As legislation such as the GDPR has an impact on ICANN org, and potentially the multi-stakeholder model and the domain name industry, it is important for all stakeholders to have these constructive conversations and to participate in the right fora, including ICANN, to ensure that the internet continues to be open, accessible, and secure.

ICANN’s mission is ensuring the stable and secure operation of the internet’s unique identifier system, more commonly referred to as the Domain Name System (DNS), with a broader vision of contributing to a “one world, one internet.” Along with many others in the technical community and beyond, we have a fundamental interest in seeing enhanced global connectivity and access to as many people as possible.

As such, we look forward to dialogue in Durban, whether it be with service providers or policy makers on how ICANN can use our expertise for the benefit of all. Building trust and working together in a multistakeholder fashion is imperative in this day and age, in order to address the challenges we face more efficiently and effectively.

Our leading UN tech event ITU Telecom World 2018 kicks off in Durban, South Africa, on 10 September – just 26 days from now.

Focusing on “innovation for smarter digital development”, this is a conference for international policy, technology and strategy experts from the public and private sector exploring the leading issues of the tech industry and its impact on how we live, work and do business.

It is unique as a platform connecting developing and developed markets, in particular in the exhibition, a window to the world showcasing innovation, projects, applications and products from nations, associations and leading industry players around the world.

Recognising the critical importance of micro, small and medium tech enterprises in driving job creation, innovation, entrepreneurialism and socio-economic development, the event aims to support and facilitate the growth of tech SMEs – through workshops, pitching sessions, networking and debates, as well as the prestigious ITU Telecom World Awards for the best innovative tech solutions for social good.

Above all, ITU Telecom World 2018 is a networking hub. It connects individuals, industry sectors and ideas with governments, regulators, academics and international organizations, building contacts, partnerships, business and creativity. Social events, networking lunches and breaks are a great way to connect outside the exhibition and debates – and there are a number of professional tools available for targeted networking, too. These include the professional Business Matchmaking Service platform to set up onsite meetings, the Contact Facilitation Service and the ever-popular event app.

Open to all participants, the mobile app is a powerful opportunity to promote and interact with over event delegates and exhibitors before, during and after the event.  You can use the app to post details, information and images on your event preparation, presence and projects, as well as updating your status, uploading photos, commenting on and reviewing forum sessions or the exhibition. It’s the perfect way to contact other participants directly through the messaging function, and includes a full listing and search function for speakers, forum sessions, sponsors and exhibitors.

All this is 25 days away – and it’s not too late to take part! Registration is open at pre-event prices right up until 6 September, giving you a discount of around 16% on onsite prices. A range of different pass categories give you different access rights and benefits at the event and include Exhibition, Forum and Executive Passes. Whatever you choose, you can find full details on the benefits in our easy overview of Access Passes.

You can register and pay in one go on the Register page on our website, whether as an individual or as a group – with reduced rates for nationals of South Africa, our host country. If you’ve been sent a registration code, you can also use it to register directly from the same page.

Our special offers include the chance to double your opportunity – if you buy a Forum or Executive Pass, you can invite a tech SME representative to attend for free. And for bulk buys of 5 or more Executive or Forum passes in any combination, you can take advantage of a 25% discount right up until 6 September.

Finally, if you’re looking to attend ITU Telecom Word 2018 as accredited media, registering couldn’t be easy – simply complete the online media accreditation form.

Make the most of early registration prices – purchase your pass now and start preparing for a world of opportunities at ITU Telecom World 2018 in Durban this September!

 Like death and taxes, change is a certainty- and we live in a time of rapid change driven by technology. It’s no wonder that we often dream of the wonders the future may hold for us, particularly as a society and in the cities we live in. Take, for example, the Back to the Future movies. Released in the mid-1980s, they tried to predict what the world would be like thirty years into the future. While not every prediction was accurate, many things (and some of them quite surprising) did indeed come true.

Today, we’re still trying to predict what the future will be like, but it’s incredibly difficult to wonder what cities will be like ten years from now. Imagine being back in 2008 right now. Could you have a predicted a world where things like Uber, Airbnb, robotic grape pickers, machines that create movie trailers or AI lawyers existed –  or where androids were granted citizenships?

Returning to 2018, we have the same challenge in predicting what the world will be like in 2028, but we can help make great strides in advancing such a future. We have places like Hangzhou China developing the Future Sci-Tech City and Saudi Arabia’s NEOM project to build a digital, smarter city that will be 218 times larger than San Francisco. We have a unique opportunity to leverage emerging technology such as AI, blockchain, cyber security, the Internet of Things (IoT), and Virtual Reality to improve public services and fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We have a chance to not just predict the future but to guide its creation.

If we want to build successful smarter cities and create the future, we need to focus on constructing ecosystems. Historically, there’s been a lot of reliance on traditional organic growth, but this really drives benefits created in a “one-off”, slow pace. With an ecosystem model, we can build large scale (for example, city-wide) solutions and accelerate the pace of positive changes and the fulfillment of the SDGs. Ecosystems provide the community of end-to-end resources and expertise in a central location that gives people extraordinary access to opportunities they could never get on their own.

Let’s consider Hangzhou’s Future Sci-Tech City, and, in particular, its AI Town component.

Their goal is to help incubate over one thousand AI startup companies in their ecosystem. This is more than just providing office space and some subsidies. Through great planning, AI Town has incorporated education and knowledge sharing opportunities, access to capital through venture capital partnerships, networking and strategy partnership connections through events and common space, and work and life balance through community building. In fact, every aspect in the design of AI Town (including things like stores and public transportation) has been focused around building and facilitating the AI ecosystem.

As we move forward, we’ll always try to predict the future. However, to drive real, sustainable change at a smarter city level, we need to develop ecosystems. We need to look at examples like AI Town and NEMO to understand the value we can create at a macro level and commit to building such models. This will be a key element for discussion in the Artificial Intelligence: impact and ownership session at ITU Telecom World 2018 in Durban this September. Because if we truly want to build smarter cities, create a better world, and fulfill the SDGs, we need to drive and guide change by creating ecosystems.

From smart speaker systems to autonomous driving, androids and drones, Artificial Intelligence – AI – appears to be everywhere. But this is just the beginning of the AI revolution, as the debates at ITU Telecom World 2018 will explore.

At heart, AI is simply a machine programmed to make sense of data on a scale humans can’t deal with.  It is the king of the algorithm, a highly intelligent machine capable of learning from experiences and producing logical conclusions based on input. As part of the digital technology connecting people, things and machines on a big data platform, it can enable solutions saving time, energy and lives, opening up opportunities as yet undreamt of.

AI is able to unlock scale and opportunity to deal with the grand challenges facing the world today, from ageing populations to sustainable urban living, access to food, healthcare, water and education, reducing poverty and increasing gender equality. Physical AI has the potential to free humans from mundane, routine tasks, allowing them to concentrate on higher-end work and releasing creative potential.

In emerging markets and smart cities alike, AI can help overcome natural limitations to growth such as geographic size or lack of natural resources, creating new markets and new value, rather than merely improving on existing models.

Improvements on current models is, however, where AI will first be in evidence, leading to significant cost savings, increased productivity, lower production cycles and improved back end or internal processes.

In the telco industry itself, AI will accelerate the evolution of network operator infrastructure into intelligent networks able to offer smarter, faster, tailored and more scalable services.

In the financial services sector, for example, AI can reduce the hundreds of thousands of hours needed to carry out regulatory compliance to a matter of seconds; or the time, effort and investment necessary for a mortgage to a few minutes. New financial services may include mass market personalised services, opening an enormous market of lower earners, or microfinancing for the unbanked. In call centres across a range of sectors, AI can work alongside humans analysing complex data sets in parallel to the human customer-facing contact, or take calls as a co-worker as far as possible before passing on to human expertise.

In all cases, AI is a tool to augment human abilities rather than replace them. It is therefore only as good as the person inputting information and parameters into its system.

Ensuring that AI is provided with data in a way that does not reflect and perpetuate inherent bias, unconscious or not, is therefore of great importance. We need to be aware of, and work to avoid, replication of existing divides and inequalities on gender, race, geography, the urban/rural split, access to education, investment in infrastructure, the availability of talent, the provision of adequate cyber security. The danger is that AI will otherwise prolong or deepen these divides, limiting its benefits to the developed world.

Providing open public data and open APIs to allow private companies and individual developers to create solutions for public and commercial services is key to democratising AI – and fast-tracking its deployment. This means balancing access to large datasets to improve quality of life against data protection, privacy and security issues.

Preparation– and education – is critical. The international community, government, businesses and individuals should be as ready as possible for the seismic changes that the widespread adoption and deployment of AI will bring with it.

The biggest of these is the transformation of the current labour market. It is estimated that up to 75% of all jobs will be impacted by AI over the next ten years – not only routine, low-skilled jobs, but also traditional blue collar sectors such as journalism, law or financial services. Productivity and revenue should rise as costs are cut, but the societal disruption will be enormous.

Standardization is critical to enable AI to function in a multi-vendor ecosystem environment, but is complicated by the fact that AI is an active machine, learning in real time with real data. AI is often invisible, raising issues of transparency and accountability; international codes of conduct or frameworks are an important first step towards regulation.

The deployment and impact of AI will be central to debates in the Forum at ITU Telecom World 2018 – a neutral platform for key stakeholders from government, industry and academia to come together, share knowledge, explore the key issues, and make real progress.

Smart digital transformation was the topic of the ITU Telecom World 2017, which took place in Busan, Republic of Korea last month. Solving urban challenges using digital technologiesv – Smart Cities – was at the centre of the discussion as summarized in the Euronews video of the event.

I had the pleasure to be part of the Smart City Leaders Roundtable, sharing experiences with leading Asian cities such as Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong and of course Busan, our host.

My learning can be summarized with the following three elements:

Building an Enabling Infrastructure

5G, the next generation mobile network, is required to support the development of our connected environment. A city like Busan is a leading Internet of Things (IoT) city, having massively deployed sensors to monitor its critical infrastructure. For example, the “Safe Driving In the Rain” service created by Busan, providing notifications of the degree of rainy road risks per road segment. This service is based on the data collected from sensors installed on public buses, generating real-time information about the volume of rain.

5G will bring ubiquitous connectivity; however, a second foundation is required to bring new pervasive digital services: the enabling infrastructure. Two important elements of this are Digital Identity and Cyber Security. When all citizens and businesses have a digital identity, efficiency gains can be realized in many sectors. Two examples: construction companies could request building permits online, and doctors could send digital prescription slips to the pharmacy for you to pick up your long-term medication.

Living Lab and Citizens Centric

To develop new digital services, most cities are creating Living Labs, which consists of providing an area for experimentation and creating an ecosystem around it. If pilot projects are successful, they are then rolled out across the entire city. It is a good way to develop the digital culture, “prototype, test and learn” and “fail fast to fail cheap”. An important element is to develop citizen-centered solutions and get citizen involvement in the design process, by creating a public-private-citizen problem solving.

An interesting solution being tested by the telecom operator KT is infectious diseases notification. The service under development is called “Smart Gate”: it makes use of roaming data to check if a person has visited an infectious disease area prior to enter South Korea. You can also send information to people visiting a country at risk and provide them with prevention advice or alerts when an outbreak starts.

Horizontal Disruption

Uber has already modified the taxi business, but we are starting to see some adjacent business development: in Singapore, Uber service is now being used in the retail industry to deliver goods. The service is therefore impacting the retail sector, by modifying the supply chain of goods.

This example shows that digital disruption is going to impact every sector and that governments should take measures to support the economy and especially SMEs. Singapore has launched a programme called “SMEs Go Digital” to help them build stronger digital capabilities. They have defined six focus sectors, retail being one of them. The programme includes an SME Tech Hub, where pre-approved solutions are proposed. For instance, a retailer can have access to a cloud-based application which supports him to sell online to the Chinese market. The tool includes tagging and authentication technology to comply with Chinese food import regulations.

Embracing this digital transformation

In this smart digital transformation, building an enabling infrastructure, developing living labs and running programmes to support SMEs will be the key initiatives to keep the competitiveness of a country in the future. Some countries are still well known as fiscal paradises: I think it is instead the time to foster a digital paradise, to become a leader of the digital economy.