The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is a two-phase United Nations (UN) summit, first introduced by Tunisia in 1998. The summit aims to create an evolving multi-stakeholder platform to address issues raised by information and communication technologies (ICTs) at the national, regional, and international levels. The goal is to build a people-centric, inclusive, and development-oriented Information Society where everyone can create, access, utilize, and share information.
The WSIS Forum is an annual multistakeholder event within the WSIS process. The forum is hosted annually by the ITU and co-organized by several UN organizations. The WSIS Forum’s process aligns with that of the SDGs. The forum’s program is collaboratively curated through crowdsourcing, promoting extensive ownership and facilitating continual improvements. The WSIS Forum in 2024, branded as WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event 2024, will take place on 27-31 May 2024 in Geneva, Switzerland, and will serve as a platform to provide multistakeholder discussions and to take stock of the achievements and key trends, challenges and opportunities since the Geneva Plan of Action in 2003.
The Green Light-Year Youth Delegation arrived in Geneva on May 25. This article shares insights from the second day of the GLY Youth Delegation’s participation in the conference.
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Wenzu Gong
Team leader
Empowering Educators and Learners for Digital Inclusion: Insights from an RCE Suzhou Youth Coordinator Post-WSIS+20
Digital Inclusion (DI) plays a crucial role in reducing the disparities caused by differences in age, gender, ability, socioeconomic status, and geography. It encompasses a series of solutions aimed at bridging the digital divide by addressing barriers to digital access, including cost, infrastructure limitations, and lack of digital literacy. The ultimate goal of DI is to ensure that all individuals and communities, especially those in underserved or marginalized groups, have access to and the skills to utilize information and communication technologies (ICT) such as the internet, computers, and mobile devices.
E-learning is instrumental in promoting DI by providing flexible and accessible learning opportunities for educators and learners. Online courses, webinars, virtual workshops, and digital resources enable educators to enhance their digital literacy and acquire new teaching strategies that align with 21st-century learning skills. For learners, e-learning platforms offer a personalized learning experience, allowing them to engage with educational content at their own pace and convenience.
Why Should RCE Suzhou Enhance TT and E-Learning?
RCE Suzhou should enhance teacher training (TT) and e-learning to further its mission of educating citizens to embrace sustainable lifestyles and creating an inclusive community dedicated to capacity building in education for sustainable development. By advancing the development of lifelong sustainability learning opportunities in formal, non-formal, and informal contexts, RCE Suzhou aims to collect and train a broad spectrum of formal and informal educators to promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Enhancing TT will enable RCE Suzhou to provide professional training on ESD, ensuring that educators have the skills and knowledge required to effectively integrate sustainability principles into their teaching practices. This, in turn, will contribute to the achievement of RCE Suzhou’s mission by fostering a culture of sustainable living and environmental stewardship.
How Does RCE Suzhou Promote TT and E-Learning?
Identifying the digital competencies that the public needs to have first is a crucial step in promoting DI. Considering the diverse needs and contexts within the community, it may be beneficial for RCE Suzhou to conduct a needs assessment or survey to determine the digital skills and competencies that are most essential for the public. This process can involve engaging with various stakeholders, including educators, students, professionals, and community members, to understand their digital literacy challenges and requirements.
Once the specific digital competencies are identified, RCE Suzhou can develop targeted programs and resources to address these needs effectively. This approach ensures that capacity-building efforts are tailored to the local context and aligned with the skills that are most relevant and beneficial for the community.
(Access to digital competencies and skills: https://www.unesco.org/en/digital-competencies-skills )
Localizing open educational resources provided by UNESCO can significantly benefit RCE Suzhou in promoting sustainable education and fostering DI. By adapting and customizing these resources to suit the local context and needs of educators and learners in Suzhou, RCE Suzhou can enhance access to high-quality educational materials and promote best practices in sustainability education. This initiative can also help bridge the digital divide by providing relevant and culturally appropriate resources to stakeholders, thus contributing to the mission of RCE Suzhou in building a more inclusive and sustainable learning community.
Jiazhou Ni
Vice team leader
By listening to the AI ethics-related conference over the past two days and searching relevant website information, the following practical measures can be listed to address the abuse of AI ethics, such as AI face-swapping:
1. Formulating and Implementing Strict Laws and Regulations
Legal Regulation: Formulate and implement specific laws to restrict and penalize the unauthorized use of personal images and voices. These laws should clearly define the scope of deepfake usage and prohibited behaviors.
2. Technical Solutions
Detection Technology: Develop and promote deepfake detection technologies to automatically identify and mark deepfake content. These technologies can help platforms and users distinguish between real and fake content, thereby reducing the spread of misleading information.
Watermark Technology: Use digital watermark technology to embed invisible marks in videos and audio to verify their authenticity. This can effectively prevent content from being tampered with and forged.
3. Platform Responsibility
Content Review: Social media and content platforms should strengthen content review mechanisms to promptly discover and remove deepfake content. This includes using AI technology to automatically screen and mark suspicious content, and equipping manual review teams for secondary checks.
Transparency Reports: Platforms should regularly release transparency reports, disclosing their efforts and effectiveness in handling deepfake content. This helps increase public trust in the platforms’ handling of such issues.
4. Raising Public Awareness
Education and Training: Through public education and training programs, raise public awareness of deepfake technology and preventive measures. The public should learn how to identify deepfake content and how to handle such content when encountered.
Media Literacy: Enhance public media literacy so that they can critically view and analyze the media content they encounter, thereby reducing the risk of being misled by false information.
5. International Cooperation
International Cooperation: Deepfake technology and issues are global, requiring the joint efforts of the international community to address them. Governments of various countries should strengthen cooperation, share information and technology, and jointly combat transnational deepfake behaviors.
6. Ethical Standards and Industry Norms
Ethical Guidelines: The AI research and development field should formulate and adhere to clear ethical guidelines, including provisions for privacy protection, informed consent, and fair use, to ensure that technology development and application meet ethical requirements.
Industry Standards: Establish industry standards to regulate the development and use of deepfake technology. These standards should be jointly formulated by governments, industry organizations, and technology companies and be widely recognized and enforced.
Kefei Chen
Team member
By listening to the AI ethics-related conference over the past two days and searching relevant website information, the following practical measures can be listed to address the abuse of AI ethics, such as AI face-swapping:
1. Formulating and Implementing Strict Laws and Regulations
Legal Regulation: Formulate and implement specific laws to restrict and penalize the unauthorized use of personal images and voices. These laws should clearly define the scope of deepfake usage and prohibited behaviors.
2. Technical Solutions
Detection Technology: Develop and promote deepfake detection technologies to automatically identify and mark deepfake content. These technologies can help platforms and users distinguish between real and fake content, thereby reducing the spread of misleading information.
Watermark Technology: Use digital watermark technology to embed invisible marks in videos and audio to verify their authenticity. This can effectively prevent content from being tampered with and forged.
3. Platform Responsibility
Content Review: Social media and content platforms should strengthen content review mechanisms to promptly discover and remove deepfake content. This includes using AI technology to automatically screen and mark suspicious content, and equipping manual review teams for secondary checks.
Transparency Reports: Platforms should regularly release transparency reports, disclosing their efforts and effectiveness in handling deepfake content. This helps increase public trust in the platforms’ handling of such issues.
4. Raising Public Awareness
Education and Training: Through public education and training programs, raise public awareness of deepfake technology and preventive measures. The public should learn how to identify deepfake content and how to handle such content when encountered.
Media Literacy: Enhance public media literacy so that they can critically view and analyze the media content they encounter, thereby reducing the risk of being misled by false information.
5. International Cooperation
International Cooperation: Deepfake technology and issues are global, requiring the joint efforts of the international community to address them. Governments of various countries should strengthen cooperation, share information and technology, and jointly combat transnational deepfake behaviors.
6. Ethical Standards and Industry Norms
Ethical Guidelines: The AI research and development field should formulate and adhere to clear ethical guidelines, including provisions for privacy protection, informed consent, and fair use, to ensure that technology development and application meet ethical requirements.
Industry Standards: Establish industry standards to regulate the development and use of deepfake technology. These standards should be jointly formulated by governments, industry organizations, and technology companies and be widely recognized and enforced.
Zihan Gao
Team member
At the “Artificial Intelligence and Global Challenges: Ethical Development and Responsible Deployment” conference, Dr. Martin Benjamin extensively discussed four key characteristics of technological colonialism in African nations and regions. These characteristics highlight the challenges and impacts of AI development on African territories:
1. Technological Dependence
African nations and regions are highly dependent on foreign suppliers for telecommunications technology, which limits their autonomy in technological development and application, affecting their positions in global tech competition. This dependence is evident not only in hardware but also in software services and data processing capabilities. For instance, Kenya’s mobile network infrastructure heavily utilizes equipment and technology provided by Huawei. While this dependence has helped Kenya rapidly expand its network and improve service coverage and quality, it has also reduced domestic enterprises’ opportunities for independent research and development, putting Kenya at a disadvantage in global tech competition.
2. Data Monopoly
Due to technological dependence, African nations and regions rely on tech companies from developed countries for their internet infrastructure. These companies collect user data through services provided, such as social media and search engines that use user behavior data for targeted advertising. The commercial value of the data primarily benefits these multinational companies, while African nations and regions struggle to derive corresponding benefits.
3. Digital Divide
Technological dependence and data monopoly exacerbate the digital divide within the African continent, with significant disparities in internet and smart device penetration between urban and rural areas and among different income groups. This inequality limits the convenience and opportunities technology can offer, further exacerbating socio-economic inequality.
4. Cultural Impact
The existence of technological dependence and the digital divide allows Western cultural content to spread widely in Africa through tech products and services, such as popular culture, movies, and music on social media. While these contents attract young people, they can also weaken the influence of local cultures and languages, leading to cultural homogenization. Dr. Benjamin, noting this, focused on language research and developed the Kamusi software to help local children learn traditional African languages, preventing them from being marginalized or completely replaced by English.
Today, as artificial intelligence develops rapidly, we, like most participants at the conference, enjoy the conveniences AI brings to us and discuss how we can use it to make the world a better place. However, for underdeveloped countries in the Southern Hemisphere, they do not have the opportunity to choose whether to accept the impact of artificial intelligence on their lives, nor do they have the technical ability to control or guide the development of artificial intelligence, only blindly being pushed forward by the development of technology. Is this also a form of colonial control from developed countries? When leaders at the high-level meeting of the WSIS proclaim from a lofty perspective that artificial intelligence can eliminate inequalities, might there be another voice that is suppressed because it has no right to speak? What we need to discuss more is how to make technology benefit those who cannot control it or choose to opt out, allowing more stakeholders to guide the development of artificial intelligence from the grassroots, preventing the misuse or compulsory use of artificial intelligence.
Jinghan Gao
Team member
During the WSIS20+ conference, I had the privilege of participating in discussions on digital inclusion as a curious and exploratory teenager. This experience left a profound impression on me. Not only did I gain important knowledge about digital inclusion, but it also heightened my sense of responsibility and contribution to the future society.
Listening to the participants’ insights, I realized the prevalence and severity of the digital divide in today’s society. The lack of digital inclusivity leads to unequal distribution of information, exacerbating social inequality. As a teenager, I understand that promoting digital inclusion means supporting those who struggle to keep up with the internet’s development, and it also creates a more level playing field for my generation.
At the conference, I encountered numerous innovative examples of how technology can be used to address issues in education, health, and other social areas. This made me recognize the immense potential of digital technology not just to improve daily life, but also to drive social change. Inspired as a young person, I aim to further my knowledge in technology, hoping to design or apply innovative solutions to real-life problems in the future.
Through the discussions on digital inclusion at WSIS20+, I, as a teenager, deeply understood that the digitalization process is a crucial driver of contemporary social development. This participation taught me the importance of delving into digital technology, not only to create opportunities for myself but also to help build a society where everyone can benefit from the digital age.
Siping Zhang
Team member
At the WSIS+20 conference, the session on “The Final Frontier: Emerging Tech and Space Economy for Sustainable Earth” revealed how digital technology is set to revolutionize the future of aerospace, particularly lunar exploration and utilization. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data analytics, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT) will significantly enhance the efficiency and accuracy of lunar missions while reducing costs.
For instance, AI algorithms can optimize the path planning of lunar probes, increasing data collection efficiency. Big data analytics will help scientists extract valuable information from vast amounts of lunar data, leading to a better understanding of the moon’s geological structure and resource distribution. Cloud computing platforms will provide robust data processing and storage capabilities for lunar bases, supporting remote control and real-time communication. Additionally, digital technology can facilitate lunar resource development; for example, 3D printing technology can manufacture necessary tools and structures directly on the moon, reducing the need to transport materials from Earth. IoT technology will enable intelligent management of lunar bases, enhancing safety for residents and workers.
Through this conference, I realized that digital technology will bring unprecedented opportunities to the aerospace field, particularly in lunar exploration and utilization. It will greatly advance human understanding and use of the moon, paving the way for further exploration of the universe.