Category: 2019 Daily Highlights Day 3

Emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain, 5G, renewable energy and big data have a critical role to play in raising awareness of climate issues – and mitigating the impact of climate change. But the real source of optimism in the fight for sustainability is not the technology alone, according to this panel of experts from industry and international organizations. It is the combination of technology with the skill, awareness and passionate environmentalism of the young people of the world.

Frontier technologies can help enormously in mitigating climate change across all sectors from health to transport, education and manufacturing, explained Orange’s Philippe Tuzzolino, Vice President, Environment, but “we have to be exemplary ourselves”, reducing carbon footprint in the ICT industry itself by ensuring that products and services are produced with lower emissions. The company has committed to net zero emissions by 2050, an ambitious target it hopes to reach through putting innovation into its factories, networks and data centres, including cooling systems, monitoring systems and shared transport and mobility solutions.

Orange is also working to fight climate change through its biodiversity monitoring in Mont Blanc and other mountains around the world, in partnership with academia, NGOs and the general public. Accurate and actionable data make it easier to make environmentally conscious decisions and reduce carbon emissions.

Until now, big data and AI have all too often been limited to buzz words, creating excitement and interest, but little action, according to Joel Alexander Mills, Chief Executive Officer, Augment City AS. It’s important to start changing the interfaces in tech and design, moving away from text to the visual, to a technology that works better for humans – allowing the differing skills of humans and machines to complement each other. “Take data, analyze at a high level to help decision making and make those decisions transparent,” he urged, so people can understand how and why decisions have been made. The holistic use of big data analysis can solve policy issues here and now, not in the distant future – such as halving the traffic flow through a city by mapping the pain points of peak flow against factors such as weather, school opening hours or tourism.

Mills expanded on the possibilities of digital twinning and digital simulation as a two-step process using technology to understand data. “Humans are very good at making decisions based on facts, but not good at making decisions based on intuition. Technology allows us to understand facts and make it as transparent as possible.” Using data to create a digital twin of a smart city involves a top down approach, overlaying a geographical map of the city with data from multiple sources to provide a complete overview.

Once we can see what is happening, we can make choices and changes to combat climate change based on transparent, visible and understandable data. Sometimes low-hanging fruit – small changes requiring relatively few resources – can have a major impact on quality of life and climate change mitigation, such as the Norwegian city dramatically reducing emissions and poor air flow by providing cruise ships in its harbor, with renewable energy.

The second stage is simulation, not just benchmarking data but using the tools of machine learning and AI to allow for proactive initiatives, solving problems before they reach a crisis point. This can have a dramatic effect on climate change by reducing emissions and managing peak flows of water, electricity, traffic and people. “We can use technology to simulate the future and make decisions before issues arise,” continued Mills. “It is an incredibly exciting time as technologies are developing so fast we can’t keep control, and we also have a population, especially the young, who are so keen to make a difference. We have much on our side, but we must push forward together.”

Greener energy sources are key, stressed Mohammed Traoré, Digital and Innovation Advisor, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, and the move from centralized power plants to decentralized smart city solutions and local smart grids is increasingly important. New technology in renewable energies and storage are key in the easing the complexity in managing sustainable smart cities.  AI, blockchain, IoT and virtual reality can find real use cases in the energy field and have a real impact on climate mitigation – but connectivity is the foundation of any new sustainable initiatives, locally or globally, in developed and developing markets.

Connectivity is also critical to tackling the effects of climate change, as Faizal DjoemadiChief of Digital & Innovation Officer, PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia pointed out. Indonesia is particularly susceptible to natural disasters, given its topography and position on the ring of fire. As changes in the climate cause mountain snow to melt and forest fires to burn, technology is essential to monitor, warn and mitigate. A partnership platform with startups is focused on creating solutions to protect from disasters, leveraging the power of IoT, data centres and cloud services to outsource innovation, building capacity, skills and awareness.

“The role of technology in climate change is fundamental and undeniable,” said Salem Avan, Director, Policy, Governance, and Strategy Division, United Nations Office of Information and Communication Technology. Technology in the widest sense has a role in enabling us to be more effective, efficient and climate-responsible all that we do. It is also important to use tech not just to solve problems, but to advocate, connect and engage, especially with young people.  We are at a climate inflection point now where we are concerned about what will happen and trying to reduce emissions, but the issue is “whether we can be smart enough fast enough.”  

Huawei’s Paolo Gemma, also Chairman, ITU-T Study Group 5 Working Party 2, ITU focused on the need for partnerships working to develop strategies to reduce waste energy and improve efficiency through technology. Knowledge, expertise and best practices in sustainability should be shared to enable developing markets to benefit from the mistakes of early adopters. In developing countries in particular, solar solutions for power stations can reduce carbon emissions, and a hybrid approach using energy from the grid at night and green solar power during the day could have a major positive impact.

Avan added that climate change will have an increasing impact on social and political security, as we see more and more changes in the physical world resulting in migration, displacement and increased poverty. Up to 80% of those affected by climate disruptions will be women and the vulnerable, with the potential to profoundly alter the fabric of society. We need to engage technology to work on these challenges, increasing inclusiveness, changing behaviour, and catalyzing humanity. Of all the emerging technologies, AI is fundamental – not in and of itself, but in what it may open up for us in these difficult times.

Ghana’s Minster for Communications, Ursual Owusu-Ekuful, welcomed a busy group of dignitaries and visitors to the Ghana Pavilion for the On Digital Spotlight today.  She spoke about the important links between Ghana, Africa and the world and said that Ghana’s success is built on digital infrastructure, skills and connectivity.  She invited the world to take a closer look at Ghana.  ITU Secretary General, Houlin Zhao congratulated the Minister for her support and input into many ITU events and said that Minister Owusu-Ekuful was the African Minister he had met most often this year.  He said that the Minister’s mission to raise the voice of Africa should be applauded.  Following impressive presentations from Ghana SMEs, a Ghana video captivated the audience as they learned about the country’s digital achievements across education, healthcare and connectivity. ​

Continuing their busy programme of activities, the EQUALS delegation today enjoyed a full day of masterclasses and workshops as part of the SME programme of ITU Telecom World.  Topics from Impostor Syndrome, How to Access to Finance, Impact investment and Intellectual property were the core of the programme during the day.  In addition, a mentoring session was offered to the delegates with the participation of Belinda Exelby, Head of International Relations, GSMA; Juan Hoyos, Capacity Building Expert, ITC; Enrique Alvarado, Fund Manager, Bamboo Capital Partners; Carla Walker, Investment Manager, Bamboo BLOC.

The mentoring session was closed with remarks from BDT-Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin and the Secretary-General Houlin Zhao, who confirmed the commitment of ITU towards gender equality in ICT.

As the presence – and influence – of AI systems continues to grow throughout society, how can we ensure that we do not increase digital gender inequality? Can we design with diversity, and can we remove bias.

These were the questions explored by diverse expert panel and engaged audience moderated by Tim Unwin, Emeritus Professor of Geography and Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D Royal Holloway, University of London. And the first surprising answer was that many in the room were not initially aware that gender bias in AI existed.

Realizing the extent of the issue for the first time, despite AI’s increasing ubiquity across all sectors and countries, Allana Abdullah, CEO, Bahaso cited the example of Japan, where robots are replacing in women in many jobs, from secretaries to sex workers. Her own team at Bahaso may be diverse, but its ICT team only included one woman out of thirty. Not because women are not capable, but because they did not apply – perhaps, Unwin suggested, because job adverts are off putting and gendered in language, shaping and imagery.

Mastercard Chief Privacy Officer, Caroline Louveaux explained how the company had invested heavily in AI to secure its trusted status by modelling and depicting scenarios, but was very aware of its responsibilities in ensuring AI was used for the good. “We need to make sure our AI tools don’t discriminate on any basis, gender, race, religion and so on, to ensure fairness of decisions,” she said, noting that discrimination of this nature could deprive people of key benefits, lines of credit and access to the online economy.

Responding to the pervasive gendering of voice assistant and AI conversation playing on the traditional trope of females in a service role, Coral Manton, Researcher and Developer, Women reclaiming AI spoke of the need to provide different voices and personalities. Even if women themselves often feel more comfortable with other women in caring or service roles, there is no need to continue to add to the system, to add more bias – we can change.

Women need to feel more comfortable with AI, she continued, pointing out that depictions and images of AI are often “blue, masculine, mythical, godlike,” creating a barrier to participation. Transparent, cooperative and collaborative teams are the way forward.

One step on that journey to transparency is developing AI governance models from the top and ensuring the right policies and frameworks are in place, said Louveaux. The process of ethics by design and AI impact assessment focuses on avoiding discrimination and doing no harm – but it

“Within digital transformation, we recognize that emerging tech should be an equalizer not differentiating even more,” said Martin Koyabe, Head of Technical Support and Consultancy, CTO. It is the data fuelling AI that brings the bias, so empowering women throughout the tech industry, and specifically within the AI sector, can ensure that bias in data is reduced or eliminated.

Abdullah agreed that, “Behind AI are the people working on it, so from the bottom up we have to start with women in research and strategy, implementing and building it, and being CTOs.”  Women have to be present and represented throughout the process, not just at the top, to bring equality.

Education has a central role to play, agreed all the panelists, bringing girls and women into tech from a young age, showing what AI is in detail and in concrete applications, not just the concepts of machine learning. Women need to really inhabit positions in tech, providing role models for others to see and admire. Capacity building is key to making a difference – both reaching out to, training and recruiting women, and building awareness of AI’s capabilities for both good and bad.

Transparency and accountability for the data behind AI are critical to reducing bias, but very difficult to govern or enforce. There is a lengthy inventory of different biases which can be identified, documented and used to define parameters, clean data and make sure models function.

AI reflects society, argued Manton, so how can we mitigate bad things happening in society? AI will provide many solutions, but we must avoid seeing it as godlike, as unquestionable.  “Technology is seen as truth, and AI even more so. Whenever we build a data asset, we have to interrogate, to look very critically, to have transparency.”

Abdullah called for the ITU to take the initiative in promoting AI technology and awareness equally throughout the world, preventing the abuse of gender bias and inequality, and promoting AI for good on a massive scale.

Governments need to take the initiative in discussing AI issues, stressed Koyabe, putting in AI frameworks relevant to the specific local context. It should be on the national agenda, irrespective of the differing stages of AI deployment in different countries, and should be brought to the level of international bodies such as ITU to provide more traction in the decision-making process

 “If we want AI to deliver its true promise and mitigate for gender equality, no one can do it alone,” said Louveaux, “There is no magic solution – we have to learn from each other, share practices and think together about how to develop the environment and mitigate for bias and gender equality.”

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In 2016, 300 million people around the world were affected by natural disasters.  Sharing technology and resources between countries helps improve the effectiveness of any response.  As Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau, ITU, said, “in disaster and emergency situations technology saves lives.”

Today, at an event hosted by EMEA Satellite Operators Association (ESOA), ​representatives from governments and industry gathered to sign the world’s first life-saving global treaty, The Crisis Connectivity Charter.  As an active member of the Emergency Telecom Cluster, the ITU has helped support collaboration during emergency situations and is a principal signatory in the Charter which will see the satellite industry working alongside the wider community to make satellites more readily available at times of disaster.  This charter aims to improve coordination of responses as well as effective planning and prediction of disasters.    

From pet health monitoring and a smart treasure hunt to drone-based street mapping and an indoor screen sports system, visitors to the Korea Startup Pavilion were able to discover a host of trailblazing innovations from the country’s rich tech startup ecosystem.

Visitors were able to sharpen their target practice skills by hitting colourful balloons with balls as they scrolled up a screen, using Image Mining’s Playcon screens, which provide indoor screen sport activity for children not able to go outside.

Ttem is a new social networking appcurrently being developed, where users can tag and link images directly into external sources, such as Google search or YouTube. Fitpet offers a new approach to keeping pets healthy, with an app that uses urinalysis to measure a number of pet health parameters, such as glucose, protein or pH, to diagnose a host of different illnesses.

Livebook is a live studio app and kiosk system, enabling users to order photo-related products via an app. Visitors were able to obtain wallet photos and badges onsite.

4S Mapper provides aerial, water surface & ground surveying, using a drone with Artificial Intelligence (AI) brain and eyes, enabling immediate viewing, measurement and collaboration via a URL. AI marketing startup Luken provides services matching customer to advertisers using image machine learning. Also on show was Mobilio, a vibration monitoring system for machine defects,  enabling users to detect problems early and avoid costly unplanned downtime, global drone lighting supplier Systec and more cutting edge products and services from tech innovation leader, Republic of Korea.

ITU, national delegations, industry leaders and SMEs came together for a high-profile ceremony honouring ITU Telecom’s long-term supporters, major partners, National and Thematic Pavilions. ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao issued Certificates of Appreciation in recognition of this invaluable support from countries, companies and individuals from around the world, as well as Recognition of Excellence awards to the best innovative exhibitors within each National Pavilion at ITU Telecom World 2019.

Are you listening Alexa? Yes! And so are Siri, Google Home, and all our other smart home and smartphone devices. What’s more, they are listening consistently and cleverly, gathering vast amounts of data, too. Properly used, according to keynote speaker Kemal Huseinovic, Chief of the Digital Networks & Society Department, ITU, this data could enhance quality of life, but it could be misused too. Is data collected used to improve services, or for other purposes? he asked. It is also a question of how the data is collected and whether its usage is in line with the key principles of privacy. Countries are equipping themselves with laws on privacy, he noted, but awareness needs to be increased on a global level, an approach ITU is advocating in its daily work.

Key concerns

The panel gave insights into the challenges around security and privacy, awareness, impact of new technologies on data generation and the idea of data as an asset.

People love connected devices, said Serge Abiteboul, Executive Board Member, ARCEP, and are happy to use them freely, with or without awareness of what’s actually being done with their data. The first issue should be protecting private data. Market forces also come into play here, as manufacturers are under so much pressure to get devices to market that their focus may be on the functionality of the device rather than its security.

 For Grenoble École de Management’s Nathalie Devillier, it is also about awareness; users may not be aware of just how much data is collected on them. Alluding back to smart speakers, such as Alexa, she noted that we may be so eager to get started that we neglect to wade through 10 pages of privacy information. Security is a major concern for her, and corporations should be addressing it “Data is a corporate asset,” she explained, “so why shouldn’t data security be considered as a competitive advantage?”

For Brett Jordan, Director Cyber Security, Office of the CTO, Symantec Corporation, we should be more concerned with the tremendous amount of data that can be collected now, and that will be generated in the future as IoT is becoming more widespread. Privacy terms of use, he explained, are seldom updated, however, to reflect increases in data.

ErnieApp CEO, CSO and Founder Isabella De Michelis, finds data an asset, and as such it is government who has a responsibility to say how it will manage the asset of its nation.

For Lina María Duque, Legal Counsel and Dispute Resolution Coordinator, CTC, the industry needs to “self-regulate” more. It should be more aware of only gathering the data it really needs to gather in order to improve devices.

Awareness and education

As consumers it is hard to appreciate just how much of our data is collected and used and what we should do about it. And because consumers don’t understand the problem, said Jordan, the industry doesn’t want to talk about it – they may want to just “keep the consumer space unaware” Or maybe users understand the risk, added moderator, Miklós Danka, Product Manager and Developer, Palantir Technologies, but are in such haste to get started with an app that they just wade through the privacy information without paying sufficient attention to it.

Incentivising users and companies to confront and address privacy issues is one way to deal with the issue, according to Danka. The industry is making products that are more secure. But governments need to make more regulations to protect the user. And the users themselves must also play their part. Greater education for users is needed, explaining what they are doing and why, and users need time to think. Essential privacy and transparency information needs to be simplified, said De Michelis, possibly including a gamification element to encourage users to engage with processes. Companies need to be mindful of the differences between their users; there is a big difference between IoT for enterprise and IoT for consumers.

Companies may bombard users with information and interfaces which are difficult to navigate, explained De Michelis. Government and regulation is needed to make sure companies provide users with accessible, easy to use interfaces, providing users with clear opt in/opt out options. We buy products globally, added Duque, so privacy regulation, too, needs to be global to match.

Inferred data

Inferred data is data that can be inferred from, for example your shopping habits, music taste or even online searches. This kind of data could be used to predict behaviour and outcome – and if needed, tailor advertisements to match. On the upside, it could, for example, help a health tracker app predict heart attack; but on the downside, it might tell Facebook your relationship is going to breakdown. Can this help us or not? asked Danka

For De Michelis, it’s a simple question of rights. At present, although laws may say you can choose the purpose for which your data is collected, this may not work in practice where the end purpose is not always clear, particularly when a company such as Google owns so many overlapping products. Users may not realise all are ultimately owned by Google and that data given to one product, such as Waze, also connects with Google maps and more. Harmonizing interfaces on how consent is given, and for what purpose, would clarify this for users, she explained. Users need to be clear that their data is being collected for transparent purposes, said Devillier, which is not the case now.

Decisions, decisions

The proliferation of online advertisements thrust in front of consumers based on their geographic location, music, food or any other preferences they exhibit could mean decisions are effectively removed from user’s hands. No need to choose a restaurant or music for example, when it can be done for you. Is this positive, does it help us make better decisions, asked Danka? Panelists felt that it depended on the context; in the home for example, freedom of choice is important; users need to be in control of the decisions they make. Elsewhere however, input into the decision may be helpful – in selecting medicine for example – although good AI is needed so users can make good quality, beneficial decisions.