Can you hear me now?
Hi. Can you hear?
Yes. This time I can hear you well.
Yes? Thank you very much. I’m Marta Fernandez. I’m here with Carina Lopes.
She started the society, a think tank director. I want to excuse Esteban because he had...
I’m here with Aurora.
Hi, Aurora. [laughs]
Hello...
I want you to excuse Esteban because he had to go to another meeting with the Barcelona City Council. Just five minutes ago he got a call from the city council, so he had to run away. [laughs]
It’s OK.
Sorry about that, but we have Carina which is a think tank director, and we will explain you a little bit more about Digital Future Society, the new program launched by Mobile World Capital and the Minister of Economy and Business from the Spanish Government, the Government of Catalonia, the Barcelona City Council, Fira, and GSMA.
Now Carina will explain you a little bit about what is Digital Future Society, which are all challenge and opportunities with this project. The main goal of this call is because we wanted to invite you to be one of the members of the global board of trustees of this project, and also to invite you to join us in the Digital Future Society Summit in November.
You already told us that you will not be able to attend in person, but maybe we can find a way to maybe...We’ll be very honored maybe to have your presentation there. Let’s start now with the presentation of the project, and then we can...
We can always do the telepresence, and we also have our local Taipei Economic and Cultural Office team who can also help with the conversation. You can always talk with real people. It’s just me that maybe attached to another person.
(laughter)
I think you can begin the conversation. Just to let you know, we will be on the record, and on the end of the talk we can decide to publish the video as is, or you want to edit the transcript. It’s up to you, so please start.
OK. Thank you. As you may already seen, we sent you an executive summary of what the Digital Future Society is. This is a new, very ambitious initiative, so we aim to be a global program that connects different actors at global scale.
We’re talking about experts, policymakers, civic entrepreneurs and organizations, and we’ll bring them together to address, understand, and engage with issues around the ethical, legal, and inclusion challenges that the digital transformation and the digital economy are presenting to us these days.
As part of this initiative, we have three main verticals of action. It’s a project that has been designed to be top-down and bottom-up at the same time.
One of the verticals is a think tank, so the think tank is about creating new knowledge in different eras that are very aligned with the challenges as perceived by society, so we’ll be touching issues that are very close to the day-to-day of citizens. The work of the think tank will be a lot of institutional work, but we’ll be working really hard to bring that content and that generated knowledge to our streets.
The second vertical will be like a lab, where we’ll transfer knowledge into solutions that can be prototypes, can be pilots, but the objective is really to bring together best practices based on what other countries are already doing, and now they are tackling the same challenges, but also develop new solutions for problems that are shared among different geographic regions and collectives.
The third vertical of this initiative is all the activities we’ll do around citizen engagement, and we’ll do these activities in Barcelona but also across all the Spanish territory and Europe, and anywhere we’ll be invited to.
It’s really about making sure that when we talk about technology and technological development, we’re thinking about what’s the impact, about the challenges and opportunities that this development is bringing to our society, and how us as a collective can address those challenges from an ethical and legal but also inclusion and equitable perspective.
As we also mentioned very briefly in our executive summary, transversal to all these three verticals, we’ll have a very ambitious objective, which is to design and get together with institution as a global scale to design a new letter of human rights that includes the digital rights.
We truly understand what should be the basic human digital rights, and because we know the impact digital is having in our lives, and we want to have a voice and to have a humane perspective on the technological development.
Regarding the think tank, and how we’ve been thinking and trying to structure what we want to present, simplifying it a lot, you can say that when we talk about technology, we usually have this recent linear narrative around the design of technology, and then it’s put to use, and then lastly, usually try to assess the impact, negative or positive, of the technology.
We want to bring a more circular way, an engaging way, where when a technology is being designed, it’s really designed from the human perspective and addressing already the impact that technology is going to have on society and users, and to have technology not designed as thinking just about consumers, but as about all of us as a society, and also talking about sustainability and so on.
The four main topics will be very generic topics we’ll be taking about is about inclusion and citizen empowerment, which is related with the relation between citizens and the technological development, and then we have public innovation.
That’s really about the challenges that the digital brings to policymakers, and how we have to change the dynamic, the speed, but also the relations of engagement to design policy.
Then we have an area about digital trust and security, and we are very concerned how the relations...also relations of power between small organizations and large organizations, and how small organizations can adapt to this new context and how can we empower them.
These can be civic organizations but also small companies, family companies, and so on, that in Spain are a very large percentage of the organizations we have and companies in the country.
Then lastly, the fourth topic is a more global topic, and it’s about equitable growth. We want to make sure that when we talk about growth, we have an equitable perspective where no one is left behind and that we always have a very inclusive and sustainable in different perspectives approach to development and growth. These are the main topics.
We’ll engage with these topics with the support of a group of institutions from different parts of the globe within the think tank, and this content will always be transformed to arrive to the day-to-day of citizens.
Because sometimes, some of the challenges we took around digital, they are translated in a very different way when they get to the day-to-day of a citizen, and sometimes we have to build this bridge. The challenges that policymakers face and the citizen faces with the digital are different, but they are connected and we have to create these bridges and parts of communication.
This is a very brief description of what we are doing. I don’t know if you have specific questions regarding the perspective, the approach, and so on.
Yes, I’ve read the executive summary, and it is very well written. I think this idea of doing technology not for the people but with the people is very well aligned with our philosophy, as well. I understand that GSMA is one patron or a sponsor to this activity.
As I understand, they also have many other activities such as around sustainable development goals, such as in the EU, there’s the Horizon projects, D-CENT and DECODE, and others focusing on, roughly speaking, the same goals. What are your relationship with the EU and UN level organizations working on, roughly speaking, similar things?
For example, with GSMA we have a very close relationship. We work with them on different projects, so they’ll be part of our global board of trustees, but also they’ll be part of the think tank, because they have units that are dedicated just to recession policymaking, so we’ll be working closely with them.
We are very committed on assuring that the tech sector really thinks about development goals, and we work together in a proactive way towards these goals. Regarding the European Commission, we have very close relationship with the city council. The city council of Barcelona participates in projects like DECODE through Francesca Bria and their team, and work very close with them every day. [laughs]
We have projects on, for example, women and technology that are aligned with some of the projects that they are doing at European level. We also participate in a lot of European projects, and we are in close conversations with the Commission to present the project, and so hopefully we’ll get their support. We have invited...
Yeah, the Commissioners Gabriel Mariya and Carlos Moedas. We have invited them also to be part of the global board of trustees, and they are willing to be part of the work, so...
That’s great. Not only the values are aligned, but you’re already working in a day-to-day operation level with these people. That is very good to hear.
I have another clarifying question. As part of this board of trustees, suppose that I agree, what are my duties? Are there yearly or monthly obligations, and can I fulfill those obligations through telecommunication only?
For us, the global board of trustees is we want them to support, to advise, and there is no timing, no obligations. It’s very flexible. For example, we would like them to participate in all summits, but they can come, for example in one in a year, or if they can’t come, a representative of them can come, or maybe they can just be online in a video conference, so there’s no...
We understand that these members they have a very [laughs] busy agenda, so what we want for them is the expertise, they are by, they support, for example, with the think tank, and with the principles with the thematics, if we are going not in the good path or if we are in the good line. It’s more of this advice point of view than no obligation of writing or sending reports or...
Exactly.
It’s only the advice and support and your expertise on this thematics.
Exactly.
Is the society itself just a name of a project? There’s another team that I participate called Global Council on Extended Intelligence or Global CXI, which is Joi Ito and IEEE and a bunch of friends, but there’s no formal institution for it. It’s just a bunch of people working on policy documents and suggestions.
Are you institutionalized within a nonprofit or a foundation in some way, or is it really just a project name for a few pillars to share the branding, if you know what I’m talking about?
You mean the program of the Digital Future Society? It’s a program that we’re part of our foundation, the Mobile World Capital Foundation, which is a public foundation in Spain. We have these three levels of government, which is a very unusual structure for our country.
That will be an initiative led by our foundation. That will be a global initiative, so it’s really about bringing different institutions together and creating space. We have a privileged position within the telecommunication sector, because we have the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
We have very close relationship with the different stakeholders and with GSMA, and we want to start within that space that we already have, and really create a space for reflection and also to position Spain and the Spanish-speaking countries to create this space of debate to really thing about digital, but always in relation with Europe and other geographic regions of the world.
So it’s mostly, I would say — because you are a foundation — a social sector institution that’s supporting this endeavor, and there’s no corresponding office within the Catalonian Government or the Barcelonian City Council? They’re more like participants to your program. Is that the idea?
Exactly. The three levels of government we have, they are in our board of trustees as a foundation, and they meet every quarter, and we do a presentation of activities, and they give us support, but there is no physical.
We have the physical office of the foundation, but we won’t have a physical space, institutionalized space for the Digital Future Society. We are a more heterogeneous program that will be led by the foundation but in collaboration with a lot of other institutions and support from the city council, regional government, and central government.
The board of trustees of the foundation, of the Mobile World Capital Foundation, the city council, the government of Catalonia and the ministers of Spain, they will be also part of the global when all the representative of each one will be part of the global board of the trustees of the Digital Future Society, as well.
That’s the connection with the board of trustees of the foundation. For us, the foundation is very important.
Because this is the way that the minister of Spain, Catalonia Government, and the Barcelona City Council they told each other, "You know, through our foundation it’s more important because Digital Future Society also wants to do a new legis-, helps to a new legislation to become in this digital area, and that’s the way that we can connect all of them, no? All the policymakers."
Exactly.
That’s great. One final question. Say that if I want to send a delegate from Taipei to the congress, for example, and I will attach myself to them, [laughs] what degree of travel and/or accommodation can this project support, or are we supporting our own budget for traveling?
We will support all these expenses, yes. That’s all supported.
We’ll support the traveling, accommodation, and most of the...
Any fees that you have when you are here. For example, if you come to Mobile World Congress, because in Mobile World Congress, we will also do a summit of Digital Future Society. We still don’t know which day, but once we have all the information, if you are member of Mobile World Global board of trustees, you will receive an invitation and we will support all the expenses.
That’s great, because I may not be able to physically come because it is... For example, if it’s during the parliamentary inquiry session, I will have to remain in Taiwan, but I’m always able to find someone who can be herself or himself a very knowledgeable expert, also.
For example, we had a conversation around social impact investment in South Korea, and our delegation is my predecessor, an ex-minister for social innovation and social enterprise, and she attended on my behalf, but from the civil society, she’s from academia anyway, but I appear through a mountable iPad so that I can still be part of the conversation.
If this arrangement is OK to you, then I will let my civil society and academic people know that if they act as my avatar or whatever, [laughs] you will still be able to support accommodation and traveling costs.
Exactly.
Exactly. That’s no problem.
It’s already allocated within our budget, this type of costs, and we know that sometimes organizations and people have to send a representative because of the agendas and other public obligations, and so on, and commitments, so that will not be a problem at all.
In that case, I would say that I’m willing, but because of our law here, I will have to check with our HR department, the secretary general.
They have to verify first that you’re a nonprofit [laughs] that we know about, and that the work that you’re doing aligns with our national interest, so they would do some due diligence and may send you some emails, but I’m quite willing to join this endeavor.
Thank you very much, Audrey. If you need any other information, further information or any other presentation you only have to ask, and we can send it to you. If you want to ask any other question from the government, we can arrange another call, OK?
Exactly.
OK. That’s great. That’s all I need. Are you OK with us just publishing this video, because it will help.
Because any other government official I’ll just point at the YouTube to them, and they will understand...
(laughter)
...the context of all we will talk about.
We understand and we support that. I think it’s a very good idea for this kind of...
OK. Thank you for your time and let’s continue this conversation.
Thanks very much, Audrey...
Thank you.
...for your time.
Thank you very much.
Bye-bye.