Session 6: Forging an equitable, digital future for all

Background
Documentation
Statements

Background

This session will explore a way forward for forging an equitable, digital future for all. Rapid digitalization is enhancing the way we live and work in a myriad of ways. It has the potential to open-up opportunities that we may not even have imagined yet. However, gaps in connectivity and access to digital infrastructure within and across countries remain a serious concern. In fact, even as digital gaps in terms of basic infrastructure and skills are being closed, the concern is that rapid emergence of higher-level digital tech infrastructures - such as artificial intelligence (AI) - that build on the basic infrastructures, might further exacerbating inequalities within and between countries, since the benefits of digital transformation are increasingly accruing in a highly unequal way to few, leaving billions behind. Against this background, this session will identify obstacles and assess high-impact actions for ensuring an equitable digital future for all. It will assess what is needed for new digital technologies to help rather than hinder our pathway towards achieving the SDGs. AI in particular promises new opportunities in all kinds of areas, from personalized medicine, to tackling illicit financial transactions, to making energy systems and traffic smart, but it is also associated with cyberattacks, job displacements, and ethical dilemmas. The session will provide a pathway towards ensuring that digitalization and its most advanced technologies can become a force for good and explores the role of the UN and other international organizations in this regard.

Biographies

Ms. Hermina Johnny

Ms. Hermina Johnny is a pioneering business leader, former educator and civil servant driving collective action through a holistic public-private partnership approach, spanning nearly every industry, and inclusive of UN member states. She is an innovative, high-achieving and diverse business executive with a record of guiding strategic partnership development for public and private sector companies. She has 15+ years of results leading successful global partnerships and innovation within global organizations and various foundations to actuate joint programming, broaden opportunities and strengthen alliances. She holds a strong ability to generate consensus and strengthen relationships amongst various international constituents.

Ms. Johnny has advised governments on key development issues. A humanitarian specialized in gender, human rights, sustainable development, inter-agency coordination & internal communications. She is a leader in collective action. She has worked in several capacities within the United Nations system & its specialized agencies & programmes on a wide array of economic, social & political affairs.

Ms. Johnny believes passionately in youth development & building strong communities. She also volunteers her free time to community service, mentoring youth, leadership development, & speaking out on the need for equality, justice, human rights, & women's empowerment. Through her foundation, The Aspire Artemis Foundation, one of the key issues she is working on is to level the playing field & increase the participation of women in STEM based studies & careers through the incorporation of arts and culture (STEAM).

Ms. Alison Gillwald

Alison Gillwald (PhD) is the Executive Director of Research ICT Africa (RIA), an African digital policy and regulatory think-tank based in South Africa. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town’s Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance where she supervises doctoral students undertaking transdisciplinary research on the digital economy and society in Africa. She co-led the Data Justice workstream of the Data Governance working group of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) and serves on the Digital Inclusion Roundtable of the UN Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation. She leads the Research ICT Africa team providing technical assistance to the African Union Commission on the Data Policy Framework and the implementation and capacity-building plan

A former regulator, Ms. Gillwald was appointed to the founding Council of the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (SATRA) in 1997, having headed the policy department at the first broadcasting regulator, the Independent Broadcasting Authority established in 1994. She has advised the South African Presidency, the National Planning Commission, the Competition Commission and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, in addition to the African Union Commission, SADC, CRASA and the SADC Parliamentary Forum. She has been commissioned by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the World Bank and the African Development Bank to undertake research and provide technical assistance to inform policy across several African countries and collaborates with networks across the Global South to build an evidence base for policymakers and regulators. She is published in the areas of digital policy, regulation and data governance.

Mr. Chris Sharrock

Christopher Sharrock is the Vice President of United Nations and International Organizations at Microsoft, based in Paris. Launched in 2020, the team has continued to demonstrate not only the value of multistakeholderism, but how it can be harnessed to advance solutions to global challenges.

Mr. Sharrock is committed to strengthening partnerships across key organizations and advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals as we work to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Previously, he led work to establish a Data Science strategy at HM Treasury in the United Kingdom and spent 5 years as the United Kingdom’s Permanent Representative, and Dean of the Ambassadors, at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and International Energy Agency in Paris. Prior senior roles include Deputy Director of Debt and Reserves Management at HM Treasury, and Chief Economist at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Mr. Sharrock has worked across domestic, financial, European Union and International policy, including in the Private Office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Before joining the UK Civil Service, he taught in schools in the United Kingdom.

In August 2022, Mr. Sharrock joined United States Council for International Business’s Board of Directors.

Mr. Henrik Cox

Henrik Cox is the Head of Product at Conservation X Labs, a nonprofit organization focused on preventing the human-induced sixth mass extinction of widlife. Henrik specifically works on CXL’s Sentinel product, a smart monitoring system that provides accessible AI in conservation technology to some of the most remote locations around the world.

The Sentinel team and Henrik have gone on to be the fortunate recipients of a number of awards for their work over the past three years, including the UN’s Top 100 Promising AI Solutions, ASME ISHOW Winner for hardware engineering, 100+ Accelerator program, Fast Company’s Innovation by Design in the Impact category, and others that will be announced later in the year.

With his background in Mechanical engineering and engineering management, Henrik is self-taught in the worlds of software and AI, and loves creating at every stage of the product development cycle, from initial design to seeing the tech work in the field.

Ms. Mi Ock Mun

Dr. Mi Ock Mun is the president of the Science and TEchnology Policy Institute (STEPI), a South Korean think tank. After graduating from POSTECH in Korea with a B.S. in Physics and earning her M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from the same graduate school, she worked as a research professor at Yonsei University and Ewha Womans University before becoming the head of the Planning and Policy Office at the Center for Women in Science and Technology(WISET). Dr. Mun then served as a member of the National Assembly in 2016-2017, Presidential Science and Technology Secretariat in 2017-2018, and 1st Vice Minister of Science and ICT in 2018-2019. Since taking over as the CEO of the STEPI in 2021, she has been passionate about managing the organization to research national innovation strategies and policies for Korea’s sustainable growth through the coronavirus pandemic and the waves of technological hegemony competition. To this end, she is expanding the role of S&T innovation policy for our future and global society by linking R&D policies to growth strategies of human resources, companies, industries, and regions by expanding domestic and international networks, and systematizing online and offline activities as a platform of think-tanks.

Mr. Robert Bertram

Rob Bertram is Chief Scientist in USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, where he leads USAID’s evidence-based efforts to advance agricultural and food systems research supporting the U.S. Government’s global food security initiative, Feed the Future. Feed the Future focuses on reduction of poverty and malnutrition through inclusive agriculture-led growth and increased access to affordable, quality diets. He advances these outcomes by working across USAID’s food security research portfolio, spanning the U.S. University-led Feed the Future Innovation Labs, the CGIAR and other International Agricultural Research Centers, and public-private partnerships in agricultural biotechnology, all of which collaborate with and build capacity of national research organizations across Africa, Asia and Latin America. He is active in multilateral science contexts, where he leads USAID participation in the CGIAR and the Global Crop Diversity Trust, chairs the FAO Global Action on Fall Armyworm Technical Committee, and serves as a Senior Official in the Executive Committee of Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement.Rob Bertram is Chief Scientist in USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, where he leads USAID’s evidence-based efforts to advance agricultural and food systems research supporting the U.S. Government’s global food security initiative, Feed the Future. Feed the Future focuses on reduction of poverty and malnutrition through inclusive agriculture-led growth and increased access to affordable, quality diets. He advances these outcomes by working across USAID’s food security research portfolio, spanning the U.S. University-led Feed the Future Innovation Labs, the CGIAR and other International Agricultural Research Centers, and public-private partnerships in agricultural biotechnology, all of which collaborate with and build capacity of national research organizations across Africa, Asia and Latin America. He is active in multilateral science contexts, where he leads USAID participation in the CGIAR and the Global Crop Diversity Trust, chairs the FAO Global Action on Fall Armyworm Technical Committee, and serves as a Senior Official in the Executive Committee of Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement.

Mr.Amir Dossal

Amir Dossal is President & CEO of the Global Partnerships Forum – a not-for-profit knowledge platform providing changemakers with tools to build innovative partnerships for the SDGs.

He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Future of Health and Healthcare Platform at the World Economic Forum. Amir is founding Commissioner of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, and Champion for the UN’s Safe Ground Campaign. He co-founded the Pearl Initiative, Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development, and Coalition for Better Health. He also serves as Ambassador for Peace and Sport, Monaco.

Amir is a 25-year veteran of the United Nations. He served as Executive Director, UN Office for Partnerships, which he established to manage the $1 billion gift by media mogul Ted Turner. Over the years, he launched several new initiatives at the United Nations, including the first-ever Partnership Office, UN Democracy Fund, UN Peacebuilding Support Office, and the Management Policy Office.

Amir is an accomplished diplomat with a deep understanding of international affairs and works globally across the economic and social spectrum. He is a recipient of several awards, including the UNA-NY 2010 Humanitarian Award, the ICAEW Outstanding Achievement Award, and the Ellis Island International Medal of Honor.

Amir is a UK Chartered Accountant (FCA). He is married to Tas, and they have one son, Zecki.

Announcements

Session 6 Concept Note is updated and can be accessed here

Concept Note

Session 6 Concept Note

Stakeholders

AI Impact Alliance
Alison Gillwald
Henrik Cox
Hermina Johnny

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