From Tech Barriers to Digital Bridges

WeGO Summit Explores Youth Engagement and Equitable Smart City Development at WSIS and AI for Good Summit

An extended session organised by the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO) at the WSIS and AI for Good Summit in Geneva focused on the critical role of smart and sustainable cities in shaping a smart society, with a special emphasis on engaging the youth as future urban champions. Danil Kerimy and Jung Sook Park opened the session, highlighting the importance of youth involvement in urban development and the success of WeGO’s programme in engaging a significant number of participants and institutions since its inception in 2022.

Alexis Gatoni Sebarenzi shared experiences from Rwanda, discussing both successful and less successful smart city initiatives, illustrating the importance of context in the success of digitalisation projects. Dr. Matteo Tarantino raised concerns about the potential for digitisation to exacerbate spatial injustice, noting that transparency, if not managed carefully, could lead to the stigmatisation of vulnerable populations in poorer city areas.

The session underscored the need for effective communication strategies that account for cultural and linguistic differences to bridge the digital divide. It was highlighted that two billion people in Africa remain unconnected, emphasising the importance of investing in connectivity to positively impact local societies and communities.

Collaboration between global and local initiatives, big tech, and grassroots knowledge was deemed essential for creating equitable and sustainable smart cities. The session concluded with a call for continued discussion on bridging the divide between the Global South and North and an encouragement for participants to engage with WeGO’s programmes.

The dialogue reflected on the three overwhelming mega-forces of digitisation, globalisation, and urbanisation, and the need to rethink how these forces are applied in different contexts, particularly in light of the pandemic’s impact. Additionally, the session highlighted the necessity of balancing technological advancements with local wisdom and community engagement.

In summary, the session provided a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities in the development of smart and sustainable cities, with a strong emphasis on youth engagement, contextual understanding, effective communication, and global collaboration to ensure equitable and sustainable outcomes.

Danil Kerimy:
Thank you for being here. I hope your WSIS and AI for Good Summit or generally this week in Geneva is going very well. It’s my absolute pleasure to welcome you all to the session that we are organizing on behalf of the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization and particularly it’s very innovative program that aims at engaging the youth, next generations of urban champions. Why we thought it’s important to bring this conversation at WSIS is because, well, World Smart Sustainable Cities will be the cornerstone of the World Smart Society. The Smart Society was born in the cities, it will continue developing in the cities and therefore we are delighted to be partnering with the Secretary General who will give us very quick opening remarks and then I will introduce the panel and kick us off into the discussion. We do hope that this will be as interactive as we possibly can. So we’ll be giving out the prizes to the first question and the best questions. So please prepare yourselves for that. Jung, it’s an absolute honor to welcome you here. Thank you.

Jung Sook Park:
Thank you very much for a kind introduction. Hi, ladies and gentlemen, and I’m so happy to be here with WSIS and also Smart City We Go Champion. Actually, this is the first session in person, a Sustainable Smart City Champion Program. It is my privilege to see so many bright and enthusiastic students with us together. And because We Go participated in WSIS last year, since last year, and also we have four sessions with city leaders from all over the world to discuss about sustainable smart city for all session and session with the UN Habitat talking about people-centered smart city because We Go is focused on human-centered smart city. And also we have other, yeah, ITU, other session with ITU because We Go is a part of City Birth Initiative with ITU as well. And also Sustainable Smart City Session we have with the city of Geneva. But today, yeah, at last, we have We Go Smart City Champion with future, our leaders. So this is most enthusiastic and also very exciting session for me. First of all, I’d like to give my sincere thanks to Matteo Tarantino and Alexandra Hazazi and Mr. Dennis Souza, and of course, Daniel Caremi, who is the Dean of We Go Smart City Champion Program for their passion and supporting for this is possible. So We Go, if I give some explanation about We Go Smart City Champion Program, our program was designed two years ago, since in 2022, and in order to involve youth in the journey over towards sustainable smart city development. So since its inception, this program has engaged about 800 participants from all over the world with over 100 institutions. And We Go is committed to ensuring that this program benefit the youth by preparing them for their job in future and enhancing their ability to drive positive change. So this session will be a kind of a milestone to make our program more fruitful. So I would like to, yeah, request more participation until end of this session. And I’m looking forward to, yeah, enjoy and seeing more fruitful discussion and more productive session as well. Thank you very much.

Danil Kerimy:
Thank you very much, Secretary-General. And today, in addition to the current and future leadership of this great organization, we are also very, very pleased and honored to have the former leaders of this organization, Mr. Bae. Please, I would like to recognize Mr. Bae, who was at the very beginning of setting up this organization 20 years ago. Please. Please. Mr. Bae is currently with the Korea Information Society Development Institute. But again, we’re very grateful that he was among the first ones to recognize the importance of the cities and the importance of bringing us all together into the future. Now, when we talk about the future, something that you would want, just show me, any volunteer? Yeah, something like that, something that you can see, something that you were looking forward to. But it turns out that in quite a few cultures, if I’m not mistaken, in Rwanda as well, you would describe the future as something that you cannot see. So you may perhaps touch the back of your head or describe something that is in a completely different narrative while describing similar problems. So with this, I would like to introduce our keynote speaker who has been an urban planner in the Global South and the recognized thought leader currently with the University of Geneva. Alexis, over to you.

Alexis Gatoni Sebarenzi:
Thank you very much for your kind introduction. Mine is a simple one. I’m going to take you through the realities of the smart city on the ground in Rwanda through two programs. And I’m going to try and show you what are the challenges, what are successful happenings, and also some less successful projects. And then invite you to think together why some succeed and others not. So, thank you. So this is my content. And when we talk of the Global South and Africa in general, digitalization comes in the context of development. And with that, we have a background of this meta-narrative about Africa or the South that it’s either rising or it’s not rising or sort of a meta-narrative, sometimes simplistic. But it is true that currently the digitalization is really seen by many actors as a lever of development to help Africa rise. Hence, you see many programs on different levels. The World Bank has a program. The African Union has a program. And especially if we see Smart Africa, which is this program that almost all the presidents are on the board, but you also have other multilateral organizations on the board, even the private sector on the board. So there is almost a consensus that digitalization is a lever of development. And of course, that’s also true within the States, within Rwanda when you go in the documents, on the policy level, you see that there is multiple levels on the policy on smart cities and promoting digitalization in the country. Particularly in Rwanda, there was Vision 2020, now Vision 2050, which really centered technology and digitalization as a lever of development. But I’m going to talk about two particular programs. And one program that I think was successful in this, not just a policy, but also a project was the Land Tenure Regularization in Rwanda. So maybe a bit, a word about the context, that there was a genocide, the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. And there was a lot of complex situation that affected land. Land ownership was really a key issue because some people had moved out, others had come in. And so there was a program to regularize land and it happened. So this is, in a nutshell, what happened. Land regularization involved, in particular, people that were called abunzi in Kinyarwanda, which means mediators. So these were local people that were able to help people adjudicate. And on top of that, there was digitalization. After there was this problem solved, people could then put their parcels, the parcels were registered. And now the result is that we have a cadastre that is fully functional, that people can access online wherever they are. The whole country, they can see all the information on their particular parcel. The transfer can be done in less than seven days to transfer land. And I would say that was a success. There was, however, another program, a recent program, that was about digitalizing the transports. And in Rwanda and in Africa as well, motorcycle transport is a big thing. So for example, in Kigali, 50% of the vehicles are motorcycle, the motos as they are called. And the sector involves mainly the youth, almost 40,000 people, mostly young men, young male men. And it was such a complex system that was already regulated with many actors. And there was an idea of coming up with this device that called the ICEFM, the Intelligent Connected Ferrometer, that’s the full word, but it was locally known as the meter. That’s how it was called. And the idea was to digitalize how people take their motorcycle. But the program itself struggled to propose a value because people could get a motor without using an app. They could just hop on a motor or call it verbally. So there was this problem because there was not only the problem of value proposition, but also a problem in disrupting this without a proper understanding of the context and the complexity of a seemingly simple thing, but in reality, very, very complex. So the result was that the passenger didn’t like it and there was a strike by the motorcycle people and it was put on hold. So what can we learn from these two projects, programs? One is the obvious one that understanding the contexts and the people in order to propose a value. So digitalization should be built on analog fundamentals of understanding, of talking to people, of knowing the context. So as I wind up, I would just invite us to always be careful with the all-encompassing narratives. Africa is rising or is not rising. Digitalization is of course a solution, has a potential, but it has to be coupled with the understanding of the context and also seeing people as the main infrastructure, the youth is the main infrastructure, people are the main infrastructure and thus everything else needs to build a smart city. So thank you very much.

Danil Kerimy:
Thank you very much, Alexis. It’s really remarkable that you’re urging us to do that because very often in a forum like this, it’s very easy to fall a victim of very simplified narratives. As you said, Africa is rising, digital is fantastic, or in the country, a very pessimistic narrative as well. It’s also very important that you show us examples. Very often the stakeholders in this game are very keen to highlight the successes, but very seldom do they actually tell us about the failure. So thank you for showing us both sides of the coin. Before we move to the panel, I just wanted to make sure that the guests that we have online are also feeling included. So if you wish to ask a question, you can type it in or raise your hand and we’ll be monitoring here to see that you’re fully integrated in the conversation. But having said all that, now the most interesting, the starters are over, we’re moving to the main dish. The main dish is a very diverse panel of experts coming from the global South, from the global North, from all the walks of life. Perhaps I’ll start with Elena and ask her a quick question. So how can organizations such as WEGO contribute to advancement of smart society, in particularly in urban environments? Perhaps focusing on some of your programs. Thank you.

Panelist:
Thank you. For WEGO, I think a lot of participants here may not be familiar with our organization. So maybe I can start with a small introduction of us. and how we work with our members and partners and youth in general in terms of bringing smart and sustainable development. So for WICA we were established in 2010 as Mr. Pei here was one of the main founders who contributed in the establishment of our organization. Next slide please. We were first established in 2010 under the name of World e-government organization by 50 founding member cities who were back then leading using the ICT technology in e-government. But as the concept of e-government evolved, e-government was only one of the pillars in using ICT in city administration. Our members and cities were now faced with using ICT in many sectors of city administration starting with traffic or waste management or even weather or health. So this request was made from our members and in 2017 we broadened our mission and scope of work to not only e-government but to smart sustainable development and hence our new name World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization. And another important factor at that moment was smart city is not only about cities public they wanted to work with private sector solution providers or institutions that are out there. So WICO is now facilitating public-private partnership in smart city development and adding one more p to that we also focus on people human-centeredness and youth and that is one of the background we have launched the smart city champions program. Next slide please. Starting with 50 founding members now we have grown into more than 200 members around the world. Next slide please. And when it comes to how we work with our members and partners around the world in a nutshell I categorize our activities in these six main pillars. One of it is the project implementation and matchmaking. So cities share their urban challenges. This is the problem that happened. So cities share their urban challenges and come to us how it can be better addressed or how it has been solved in other parts of the world. So we matchmake this kind of solutions where cities to city cooperation or it could be city to private cooperation and we help in assisting project implementation. And also another important factor is the capacity building part. I’m not sure where the sounds come from. I think our online participants we are excited that you have so many questions but you will have to be a little bit more articulate for us to understand them. So thank you. So in terms of capacity building programs we have the smart city champions where we educate the youth and we have the many government officials city officials who needs to learn about what is out there what kind of smart trends are happening and how the landscape of smart city field is changing. So we organize many workshops seminars or training programs that will help them to understand this evolving changes and better adapt to this world. And we have the research and development project some of you may hear have familiar with IMD smart city index is based in Switzerland. So one of the projects that we are doing is IMD smart city index report ranking. So that and we also research on ESG framework how ESG framework can better be adapted to smart city field. So many research are done in cooperation with academia or institutions. And another important thing is knowledge sharing and networking. It’s one of the reason we go is here with our member mayors around the world in WSIS this time. We have had this mayor’s roundtable a few days ago where the mayors had shared their policies initiative in their smart city era in their own town cities and how they need more collaboration with the world to make things move faster and how to help our citizens in digital transformation. And another regional activities I think it can be connected to the global self effort made down there. We have every continent have different needs and different development stages. So we answer to these different stages and we have formed different smart city networks in region based. So we have ASEAN smart cities network. We have Latin American smart cities network and we have African smart city network where we gather these cities within their regional basis and tailored and conduct tailored programs based on their development staging and needs. And we also have governance activities of course where all members are gathered in one place to discuss what is important in smart cities and how we go can better help them and what kind of activities and programs or themes are needed. And yesterday we were meeting with our mayors who are here today and one of the interesting points received were from they are now interested in how AI can be adopted in the government administration. So things are moving very fast and one of the requests we received at WSIS this time aligned with AI summit I think how to use AI technology better connected to digital identity to how that works with the government. So that will be our mission for coming months to better help our members adapt to this new agenda.

Danil Kerimy:
Brilliant. Thank you very much Yelena. Before I turn to Alexander and Matteo I just want to jump back quickly to Alexis and ask a very simple question. When you were still planning your urban planner once an urban planner always urban planner but did you have such a support network? Were you missing anything? What would be more helpful for you to see as WIEGO is rolling out all these programs globally?

Alexis Gatoni Sebarenzi:
Thank you very much. I think there’s a need to raise awareness and connection because sometimes such programs might be there but they’re not known by the planners on the local level. They don’t know that they can tap into that potential into that network to be able to contribute and also get help from peers but also from the organization themselves. So a simple answer is just know that they existed.

Danil Kerimy:
That’s great and just like a good scripted Hollywood movie that’s actually a perfect setup for my next act because Matteo and Alexander have been doing exactly that. They’ve been going around the world and trying to spread the word about all these activities and amazing opportunities both on technology side but also on anything from nature-based solutions to human-centric cities through this WIEGO Champions program. I don’t have any particular preferences perhaps Matteo will start with the conversation. What have you learned from all those different geographical get-together? How can you compare it across the regions and generally just any highlights from the program please? Thank you Matteo. Thank you and a good day to you all.

Dr. Matteo Tarantino:
I want to pivot back to something that Alexis was saying before and it’s the inherent danger of monolithic narratives about digitalization and digitization and if I learned anything from our experiences around the world is precisely there is no one-size-fits-all in this context. But I want to stress in particular some of the ways in which if not properly checked in some contexts the ICTs and digitization can actually act against spatial justice so that smart cities must be built around this kind of limitation. So one of the things that one of the key promises of smart cities for example is greater transparency towards the citizenship right about such things as the environmental situation and or the safety and security and transport situation and so on and so forth. But what we observed was that if you deploy that kind of transparency that comes from sensors essentially so from automatic continuous monitoring of situations which is something that we desperately need to feed into decision making but if you open it to the public indiscriminately then you end up having discriminatory effects. For example in most of the context the poorer areas of the cities are the ones that are more exposed to environmental degradation. So the more polluted areas of the cities are also the poorest and if that becomes let’s say a visible index right as it does in many contexts the United States comes to mind if you don’t want to go into the global south then what happens is that data acts as a segregator. So less and less people will want to live in that area so the cost of real estate will go down and down and down and then with all the phenomena that follow suit in that until somebody comes in and one fell swoop buys everything off and then redevelops kicking out the poor people from those areas, the disadvantaged people. And that comes from a place of good like you wanted to be more transparent with your citizens about the situation in the city but it ended up actually stigmatizing the most vulnerable parts of the population. So one thing that I want to offer also for discussion is that the transparency that the internet of things and sensors and smart cities offer us must be wielded very carefully and in a way that doesn’t end up impacting precisely those parts of the population that you wanted to protect with it through better decision making.

Danil Kerimy:
The road to hell is paved with good intentions so thank you very much that’s uh with sensors with the IT sensors yeah thank you very much fascinating discussion. Alexandre, you have to you know take us to a whole new level to be that insight.

Dr. Alexandre Hedjazi:
Well yes being a city planner myself I can only move towards what and applaud what Matteo just said. Special justice is about moving ahead and away from in as Alexis also said encompassing narrative but also methods and methodologies. What I see through the case that you presented Alexis but also what we see here with Vigo as well as global structures and global architecture of governance of technology is that we cannot only talk about big tech we really need to dig deeper and see what is happening below under the radar or you know the the small initiatives what is happening to bring them all together with the the strength and the force and the power of big tech and no one else can can be as helpful in this connecting the big tech big global structures and infrastructures as well as the local context than either global grassroots organizations like Vigo but also some of the new initiatives that are being developed across the planet including in this town and I just want to give the the mic to a colleague of ours Yannick from Giga to say a few words about what Giga is doing in that respect to connect the big tech the big picture the more encompassing and global dynamics of change and digitalization with what is happening on the ground and more specifically through the digitalization of schools. Absolutely

Panelist:
so thank you so much for this opportunity to briefly present Giga and I thank you also for the very complimentary presentations you gave very inspiring. Giga illustrates well the reality that we all face issues that are bigger than all of us and that collaboration is the only way forward. We join forces with UNICEF ITU and UNICEF to bring connectivity to schools in the world by 2030 we want to connect all schools in the world to the internet starting with a series of countries where we are implementing. I learned yesterday that 50 percent of schools across the planet are not connected. It’s about 500 million students still unconnected to the internet and it’s also true that we call connectivity SDG zero because of how transversal it is in accomplishing most of the SDGs. So it is it is very important to realize that as we talk about AI and so on there remains an I need to bring a connectivity which is the the baseline in a way and and two or three lessons learned if I may I think first and foremost building on the strengths of various organization is important you don’t have to do things yourself it’s important to identify what are you good at and who else is better than you and joining forces with others and the other one is the importance of a capacity building. We currently worked about in about 34 different countries and one of the things that we hear over and over again is the need for capacity building so we will be opening a center here in Geneva in the next few months to try to accelerate the impact of Giga to capacity building and and one key element is it’s not just about the technical skills it is first and foremost about a way of working that is different than what many people in the administrations maybe are aware of it takes a different mindset to make collaboration work and it it takes a different way of engaging as an ecosystem to try to tackle some of the issues that we face. I hope it’s useful and very happy to explain a bit more.

Dr. Alexandre Hedjazi:
Thanks a lot Yannick and this indeed brings us to I put my city planner and urbanist hat to the spatial justice issue I mean we we we need to connect the dots through different initiatives that are taking place. These are the low-hanging fruits and we really need to capitalize on that in the case of Kigali and you know Rwanda is is very good example of how we can bring everyone together and take stock of what these initiatives are also bringing in terms of opportunity as well as what WEGO has has has started as a as a global initiative to to bring youth into this this discussion.

Danil Kerimy:
Brilliant, thank you very much. We still have some time left in our panel but and this seems to be a good opportunity to engage you all in the conversation as well as the people online if they there’s a wish to raise their hand ask question and make a comment. We all come from very different places we all have seen the way in my view it’s important to have a dialogue and to have a there were three really overwhelming mega forces in the past two decades, at least as long as I can remember myself, which was digitization, globalization, and urbanization. And the pandemic of the previous couple of years have really highlighted the need for us to rethink how these three forces play out in different places. It’s not to reverse them, but to rethink. As well as Yannick’s initiative, it’s very interesting for me to see how the Global South conversation around connecting the schools is completely diverging from the conversation in Global North about disconnecting students from devices. So at some stage, hopefully, these conversations will converge and the Global South can learn from potential mistakes that were made in different places in terms of how the connectivity, it’s not that we shouldn’t have it, it’s just how it works. That’s also very, very important. Before I open up to the public, both online and offline, I wanted to see if there are any comments among my fellow panelists. Matteo always has a comment.

Dr. Matteo Tarantino:
I was thinking about Alexis’ presentation, actually, and I have a question for Alexis as well. So would you say that eventually, because of the strike, the attempt to digitize mobility, light mobility, semi-light mobility in Kigali actually ended up making worse the situation of mobility for the parts of the population that were most using that kind of service? Or was the strike short, for example, or was it extended over time? Did it impact the opportunities of these people, or was it more ephemeral in nature?

Alexis Gatoni Sebarenzi:
Thank you. The strike was more of a culmination of a process of expressions of unhappiness around the system. So it was more of the final stage, but both the passengers, but also the motorcyclists had already expressed displeasure in the way these things were, the system was working. And it was in part, as I explained, because there was digitalization, was more or less in this case, should I say, an end in itself. So it wasn’t showing the value proposition. So the question was, before I was taking a motorcycle without passing through the app, why should I take it through the app then? And the answer to that wasn’t fully clear, I would say that was the center of the problem. It’s an interesting tension between the two.

Danil Kerimy:
Great. Now let’s turn to the audience, again, both online and offline. Any questions, any comments, any experiences that you may want to share in terms of engaging how the smart society is playing out in the cities around the world? How can the very passionate youth, very keen to develop, very keen to transform, can be better engaged and incorporate in urban planning to avoid mistakes and repeat the successes that we have seen and described on this panel? You do some very interesting research. Why don’t you share it with them?

Audience:
Do you hear me? Yeah. Okay. I’m doing a research that is about local communication of sustainability. So how our institutions share mainly the indicators, main cities indicators, but also everything else and how the population like react to that. So what are the social conflict between the population and the institutions? So maybe about that, I would like to ask a question. So how communication could bridge the gap between the global South and the North? And maybe you talked about the role of education, but I think there is also something else that could bridge this gap. Maybe it’s, okay, data, data sharing, communication, not only in terms of data, because communication is not only data, but I think there are also partnerships or something else. So do you have like concrete examples of that and evidence about that? And do you think that there is something that could be useful also for the local communication to share? And I think that’s all. Thanks.

Danil Kerimy:
Thank you. So the importance of not only what you’re doing, but also how you’re doing and how you’re communicating and what you’re doing. Alexander, you want to pick that one up?

Dr. Alexandre Hedjazi:
Communicating about sustainability is not an easy task. And we’ve been working in Geneva with Mateo and other international organizations to localize some of the, from the assessment and also reporting of sustainability advancement. It’s never easy. What I want to say, and obviously, you’re a passionate student, so I know that the work that you’re doing in research is very much going to help us understand also how to break some of the barriers in terms of communicating. I will also want to reach out to Alexis and say, based on your experience from the municipality and as a citizen, how do you see that things can be improved in terms of, again, communicating on improvements? Because that can be inspiring. That can be also addressing the resistance to change from the population. And then I would like to give the mic to another passionate student, Touba, who’s at the opposite. Okay, Alexis?

Alexis Gatoni Sebarenzi:
No, I completely agree with you that communication is important. The center are not as easy as sometimes it’s put out. To me, communication to be made effective, it has to make the effort to understand the people, where they’re from, the place they are coming from. So in the sense of, for example, simple things like communicating in local languages, simple things like that, and also providing platforms for people to express their ideas in what is making them reluctant to adopt technology. Sometimes it’s surprising. It’s a lack of knowledge, of course, but also other assumptions that around that, that when they’re not communicated, there’s not an engagement between the parties, it can be difficult, yeah, to say the least.

Panelist:
Can I add on? Just to add on, as an organization working with cities, we also have to communicate with many cities around the world with different backgrounds. So from our experience, as Alexis mentioned, having understanding of their background, the cultural background, the language also helps in terms of understanding their needs and their way of thinking and how they approach smart city development within their city. Even the definition of smart city sometimes varies, even among our members. So whenever we meet a different city from a different country, we would be ready to understand their definition of smart city and their level of stage and the direction that they wish to take their city when they talk about smart city. And also we have our regional offices around the world in connection to our regional network. Sometimes they represent their continent regional offices, work with our secretariat to better communicate the regions that they’re in charge of, so that we also understand better needs from our members in that specific region. So I hope that helps.

Danil Kerimy:
Thanks very much, Elena. Who’s the talented student that Alexandre has referred to?

Dr. Alexandre Hedjazi:
And maybe before giving the mic to Tuba, I just wanted to say that what WIGO is doing, but also GIGA, is precisely what is needed to connect the high big tech with one of the other elements that is very important in global majority or global south in terms of, you know, spatial justice, is about our ancestral wisdom. It’s about the knowledge that we have locally, that you are saying that we need to capitalize on and often is forgotten. And this is something that organizations like GIGA but also WIGO are bringing very nicely together to connect the big tech with what is happening on the ground. So Tuba, passionate student on sustainability and urban sustainability, what does this inspire you?

Audience:
Hello everyone. Well, thank you very much and I thank all of you for your very nice introduction to the smart cities. And so at the University of Geneva, we had the opportunity to work on smart cities for two semesters and it was a very interesting topic. However, when you talk about it with people who are not familiar with the subject, they feel very overwhelmed and they also feel a little controlled by the idea of smart cities. So kind of like London comes in mind with all the cameras that they have and cliches like that. So I think that giving a better understanding to the global population of what smart cities is very important. At the same time, I think that it’s a very nice opportunity for WIGO or GIGA to collaborate with Geneva University because we have a lot of passionate students in the different departments who can help as well and they have good ideas, I would say. Thank you.

Danil Kerimy:
Thank you very much Tuba and I see one last, if you have one minute, one last passionate student, Paulina. You are also at University of Geneva and you’ve been working on urban sustainability. How does this example that Alexis brought to us and the debate is inspiring also what you’ve done. You just came back from Korea so it’s also that experience that I think being exposed to high tech and big tech but also what is happening underground is very important.

Audience:
Thank you so much for giving me this chance to speak. I’m really inspired by all the talks we are having and by the question about connectivity and communications. I just want to bring a number, to remind a number that we still have two billion people not connected on the African continent and it is really challenging and difficult for us as a society, as a community to provide this equality and since we are in ITU now we can also benefit this platform and to raise these questions how can we invest into this connectivity in order to affect local societies and local communities and it is really interesting what you have just mentioned about sharing the wisdom and the knowledge, not just bringing these new technologies and fancy technologies from the developed world but the way back doesn’t work on such a good level and what we are doing here in International Geneva too is trying to build a bridge between cultural heritage and copyright protection which is a huge challenge that is not solved in our society now. So how to make a friendship between these two topics and also how to make it a part of our cities. So yes we have this urbanization process but still we have these community issues and yeah so it is just a few topics, a few random thoughts but I think it could be interesting to proceed with discussing these issues and not only bringing the examples of successful cities, megacities and successful companies but vice versa to bring the, you know, this native wisdom and native communities to our discussion in the future. Thank you.

Danil Kerimy:
Thanks very much Polina and this is precisely what we are trying to do as part of the WIGO Champions online and offline gatherings online program. We are happy to share all this information with you. It’s a set of very simple, easy accessible lectures, exercises, engagement opportunities for us to cover those topics precisely from anything that is future for looking such as urban metaverses and urban quantum networks to actually nature-based solutions, human engagement and population engagement and communication of those issues as well. So I strongly encourage everyone to sign up and take those courses. There’s a suggestion online. So there’s a sign up and take those courses as well as participate in the future events. Here as you see we try to bring you not only shiny examples of what works, we also brought a very good learning opportunities to see what hasn’t really worked. With this I would like to turn back to the Secretary General who launched us off just to finish and say concluding remarks before we finish our session. Thank you.

Jung Sook Park:
Okay, thank you very much. It is a very meaningful session but too short to discuss about how we can solve the problem from global south and global north divide. So next time we will have another session. Please welcome you all to participate in our WIGO Smart City Champion program. Thank you very much.

Danil Kerimy:
Thank you very much Secretary General. Thank you very much the panelists. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you all in the room. Please stay in touch and Matteo is happy to share any information you may need as well as the WIGO team in terms of any programs that we have been mentioned today. And again a strong encouragement to you all to get engaged. We have to build our cities smarter and more sustainable into the future. Thank you very much.