ITU Digital World 2021
Event highlights
Session summaries
Upskilling us all: digital skills for a digital world
Human at heart: privacy, transparency and accountability in AI
Greening our own house: addressing the environmental footprint of digital technologies
Securing cyberspace and protecting privacy: meeting the challenges of a digital world
Session videos
13:30-14:45 (Geneva time), 5 November 2021
Upskilling us all: digital skills for a digital world
Full video
13:00 - 15:00 (Geneva time), 11 November 2021
The 10th GTI Spectrum and Technology Online Workshop
Full video
13:30 - 14:45 (Geneva time), 17 November 2021
Human at heart: privacy, transparency and accountability in AI
Full video
08:30 - 09:45 (Geneva time), 18 November 2021
Beyond chocolate: cutting-edge digital solutions from Switzerland
Full video
13:30 - 15:00 (Geneva time), 24 November 2021
Greening our own house: addressing the environmental footprint of digital technologies
Full video
13:30 - 14:45 (Geneva time), 30 November 2021
Securing cyberspace and protecting privacy: meeting the challenges of a digital world
Full video
See full event calendar
ITU Digital World Photos
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Viet Nam commits to national, regional digital transformation
As co-host of ITU Digital World 2021, the Southeast Asian country marks 50 years of ITU Telecom events and aims for inclusive tech-driven prosperity
Geneva, 12 October 2021 – Viet Nam seeks to stimulate trade, build skills, and strengthen Southeast Asian economies in line with sustainable development through digital transformation, the country’s Prime Minister announced today...
Read full press release
Executive interviews
What they said
Digital transformation is important for the whole of society and needs the cooperation of the whole ecosystem. Government plays a key role in setting direction, policy, support and coordination
It is a human centric strategy, putting the person in the core of the digital transformation
The digital divide is not about being on line or off line but about meaningful connectivity – everyday use on an appropriate device with fast connection
We urgently need to reimagine our world as one where digital inequality and exclusion are excluded
Meaningful connectivity is achieved when everyone can use the internet every day using an appropriate device with enough data and fast connection
Affordable access is everybody’s responsibility
Digital transformation must revolve around people as the subject and object for development. This process will only truly succeed when every citizen can actively participate in digital transformation and reap its benefits
Digital transformation to build the digital world does not belong to any single country, organization or individual. No country, organization or individual can be exempt from humanity’s digital transformation process
Digital transformation is a mindset
Digital transformation is a fundamental change – developing countries have less to replace, and less to remove, so can move more quickly and make changes faster
The ability to blend together the capabilities of terrestrial networks with satellite networks to help provide a more sustainable solution that covers everywhere on the planet has a great deal of merit
The fundamental constraints on the market have changed, and that's going to encourage more operators and more development, which eventually will lead to lower prices as well
Spectrum harmonization sets the scene for investment, industrial planning and the present and future of ecosystems....guaranteeing economies of scale, lower prices and better services
We need a better way of harmonizing national regulations with ITU guidelines as otherwise we will end up with less spectrum, not more
The only way we can move forward is to have an open and honest discussion on frequency and not exaggerate, but explain properly the impact
Adjacent or alternative service allocations are becoming a threat, encroaching on protected bands.
Spectrum does not respect borders
If there is no certainty in the frequencies and in regulation, it is difficult for an industry to continue to invest in innovation and be proactive.
The business case for affordable and meaningful connectivity, especially in rural areas, needs to be made - and we still have a long way to get there
We need the ESG principle in the satellite industry: environmentally friendly with no debris or interference; sustainable; and governance to provide equitable services.
The satellite sector is well placed to drive truly global digital transformation, but this ‘gift to society’ must be managed in a sustainable manner.
The only thing that matters is the real business case. It is very easy to define a use case with 5G, but you need to find a positive return on investment in a reasonable time span – and it takes time to identify this sweet spot.
5G is a highly flexible and constantly evolving innovation platform that integrates many different technology building blocks – wireless connectivity with very high performance, edge computing, integrated positioning, time sensitive networking and many more – and may become the digital backbone of digital transformation.
It’s the architecture itself, the efficiency in optics, the convergence, introducing cloud native architectures and bringing in security into every piece of this new architecture - that’s our definition of the future of the internet
Better data, more focus on mid-band spectrum and more funding are the ticket to making sure that 5G new technologies and broadband reach everyone, everywhere.
Next generation networks require dense and heavy fibre deployment. This can be offset by careful resource sharing and planning, together with lowering the cost of core network operations as they become a software defined commodity
New technologies and digital solutions are providing more and more choices and alternatives for affordable connectivity particularly in under-served and unconnected areas.
Fixed wireless access will play a key role in bridging the digital divide.
Wireless mesh networks are a very good technology to look at - an interesting combination of high and low frequency to working together to solve the backhaul and access problems
If you change the economics, you get automation, autonomous networks and solutions – and you get everybody the access we all have
Evolution in technology and work on standards will make it much easier to integrate satellite into the network of networks. The legacy divisions between mobile, fixed and satellite are dissolving
AI will be key: we cannot manage on a legacy mode such complex and enhanced modern networks
If this pandemic had happened in 2000, only 0.2% of the workforce would have been able to work remotely. Less than 1% would have had real broadband connectivity. Networks have been the critical glue enabling us to work from home and drive education.