Partner2Connect High-Level Panel

WSIS Forum closes with Partner to Connect initiative surpassing $50 billion in pledges for global digital development

During the final session of the day at the WSIS Forum, Sulyna Abdullah introduced an exciting lineup of announcements and updates on the Partner to Connect (P2C) initiative’s progress. Dr. Martin and various speakers were invited on stage to share their insights and commitments towards achieving universal connectivity and sustainable digital development.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin highlighted the importance of partnerships in advancing the WSIS agenda and the P2C initiative. She revealed that P2C has garnered 900 pledges worth an estimated $46 billion, demonstrating the coalition’s ability to mobilise resources and secure commitments for digital initiatives. The goal is to reach $100 billion by 2026.

Robert Opp from UNDP provided an overview of the WSIS framework for digital cooperation and its relevance to today’s challenges. He emphasised the need for collaboration across different sectors to create an inclusive information society.

Xinhui Wang of ZTE discussed the company’s commitment to constructing ICT infrastructure and providing ICT lectures globally, particularly in LDCs, LLDCs, and SIDs. ZTE’s innovative solutions, such as solar-powered base stations, have been instrumental in addressing electricity shortages and natural disasters in these regions.

Lina Maria Duque Del Vecchio from Colombia’s Commission on Regulation of Communications shared the country’s efforts to facilitate the deployment of telecommunications infrastructure, with 806 municipalities certified as free of barriers, representing 73% of the country.

Brian Huseman from Amazon Web Services announced their training of over 21 million people in cloud computing skills and the launch of Project Kuiper, a $10 billion investment to provide low earth orbit satellite broadband globally.

Christopher Burns from USAID provided updates on their Digital Invest program, which has raised over $310 million in investment capital, and their Youth Mappers program, which has contributed significantly to OpenStreetMap.

Mary Mungai from the Communications Authority of Kenya outlined the country’s progress in deploying fiber infrastructure, establishing digital skills programs, and digitalising public services to transform Kenya into a digitally enabled nation.

Chelsea Hornby from Elle International pledged to provide digital platforms for women’s health, smart menstrual health dispensers, and support for an AI consortium to advance open science in women’s health.

Ashutosh Chadha from Microsoft discussed the company’s commitment to inclusivity, particularly for people with disabilities, through AI technology and partnerships.

Claudia Selli from AT&T announced an increased commitment of $5 billion to connect 25 million people by 2030, focusing on underserved areas and populations.

The Government of Canada submitted two new pledges totalling 2.4 billion Canadian dollars, investing in AI infrastructure and the creation of a Canadian AI Safe Institute.

The session concluded with the announcement that P2C has reached a total of $50.96 billion in pledges, crossing the halfway mark towards the $100 billion target by 2026. The event highlighted the collective efforts of the international community to bridge digital divides and ensure that no one is left behind in the digital age.

Sulyna Abdullah:
So, this is the last session for the day, and it’s going to be extremely exciting with nice announcements, and we’re going to see where we are on the P2C total. So, don’t go away, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to start immediately. I’d like to invite Minister Dr. Martin and all my speakers on stage now, please, and let’s keep the music going while they come up on stage. Please welcome them, ladies and gentlemen.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin:
Okay, good afternoon, good evening. I was going to ask everyone to stand up and stretch, but I think perhaps the music has had the needed effect. Thanks everyone for staying with us. I know it’s been a long day, but there’s still some great things to come, including in this session, and also after this session, we’re going to have some real yoga, and then we will have our reception hosted by our Swiss partners. I wanted to ask anyone in the room or on the panel, how many times do you think the word partnership was mentioned in the Geneva phase of the WSIS? Anyone want to guess? You can just yell it out loud. 65. That would have been good. Anybody else? 200? Zero? All right, something in between. It’s actually 15, which is pretty good, I thought, and when I was thinking about that, I thought, well, that’s because back in 2003, when we were talking about creating an information society that was fair, that was trusted, that was inclusive, we knew we needed partnership. So partnership was actually at the core back in 2003, and of course, partnership was also at the core in 2015, when we adopted the agenda 2030, and we have a goal, goal 17 on partnership, and that’s what this session is all about today. It’s really exciting because we’re bringing two communities together in the spirit of partnership, and that is partner to connect and the WSIS community. It’s the first time we’re doing it, so we’re excited about that, and I think it really helps to bring us closer to achieving the goal of universal connectivity and meaningful, sustainable digital development. It also brings two incredibly influential communities together, and it marks two decades of progress towards this people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. It’s not a chance encounter. Partner to connect and WSIS actually have much in common. In fact, partner to connect was created in close alignment with the WSIS Action Alliance and the Sustainable Development Goals to foster meaningful connectivity and digital transformation globally. The focus areas that underpin partner to connect are designed to help dismantle the barriers to access, to adoption, to value creation, and to investments in connectivity. They mirror the key objectives that are outlined in the digital cooperation framework that was established by WSIS some two decades ago. To date, partner to connect is 900 pledges strong, worth an estimated value of $46 billion U.S. dollars in commitments that have been submitted to the P2C platform. I think this is proof that partner to connect digital coalition can really help mobilize resources, forge partnerships, and secure commitments for digital initiatives. Last year, I called upon this very community, the WSIS community, to join us in our partner to connect mission. And now looking out at all of you, especially my amazing panelists, I’m thrilled to say that the WSIS community has responded in force, and you’re going to hear more about that. We will hear from new P2C pledgers. We will hear from our P2C champions, and we’ll also hear from WSIS community members that are helping to make strides in bridging digital divides all around the world. We do have a big announcement that you’ll hear shortly. I won’t share it now, but what I will say is this big announcement helps us in getting closer to achieving our goal, which is to get to $100 billion by the end of 2026. So I know you’re all eager to hear from this amazing group. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, a big thanks to our panelists, to our pledgers, and looking forward to many, many more. Thank you.

Sulyna Abdullah:
Thank you very much, Secretary General of ITU. So I have the pleasure to moderate the last session, and I know we stand between you and yoga the rest of the evening, but I promise you it’s going to be very exciting. Now, look at these panelists that I have here. Everyone’s smiling. Well done. Now, you know what partner to connect is all about. So I’m going to go right into it, and you can see who they are on the screen. Ignore my photograph. It’s a couple of years old, misrepresentation. That’s okay. First of all, I’m going to call on my friend, Rob Opp, to say a couple of words. I have a question. Now, Rob is in UNDP in his capacity as co-organizer of the WSIS Forum to give a brief overview of the framework for digital cooperation established by WSIS and how it has adapted to the challenges and opportunities of our time. Now, also, please give us some insights on the WSIS vision to build people-centric, inclusive, and development-oriented information and knowledge societies. Rob, because you’re my friend, I’m giving you three minutes. Actually, everyone has three minutes. Being my friend makes no difference. Here’s the mic. Thank you.

Robert Opp:
Well, maybe I can take the challenge to try to give some time back if I’m really brief. Let’s see. I guess I’m speaking as the WSIS community in this, in a way. I guess my question is about WSIS, but I would say there’s been several sessions today which have remarked how interesting it is that in 2003, 2005, when the WSIS was held, the vision statement that was come out with and the principles that came out with are so relevant still today. When you look across them, they’re covering all the major issues that we’re still talking about today, and yet there were fewer than a billion people connected. The visionaries that did that work really need to be commended for that. I think that in some ways, and this is straying from your question, Selena, so if I can go off-piste just a little bit. It is interesting that in 2015, when the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals were created, Doreen asked how many times partnership was mentioned in Geneva. In the Agenda 2030, digital was mentioned once, and even ICTs, which is a more common reference, were only mentioned, I think it’s four times or five times. I think there’s some connecting that still needs to be done or is being done now. It’s nice to see a convergence because I think it is really necessary that these communities come together, the ones that are working on, let’s say, development issues, the ones that are working on human rights, the ones that are working on technology, the ones that are working on all these different aspects need to really be brought together. I think that’s a great thing about how the Partner to Connect, as an initiative and bringing all of that work that can be implemented at the country level, all the assets, all the expertise from these different players, bringing together or being brought together and still united by this common vision that we have around creating a society that is an information society with people at the center. This is really the exciting part. I’ll leave it there and give you 46 seconds back.

Sulyna Abdullah:
I think that deserves a round of applause. No? Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Well, you know, as the ITU Secretary General was saying, WSIS and Partner to Connect have a lot in common. In fact, P2C was established following the WSIS principles and action lines. And today we will hear from pledgers helping achieve the WSIS vision across four focus areas, access, adoption, value creation, and acceleration of investments and connectivity. Now I’m going to turn now to P2C champion ZTE, represented by Mr. Xinhui Wang. There you are. Okay, already. I have a question. Okay. The WSIS action lines state that information and communication infrastructure are an essential foundation for an inclusive knowledge society. So as a P2C champion, ZTE is dedicated to advancing access to connectivity worldwide, particularly in LDCs, LLDCs, and SIDs. Could you please share some updates on how these commitments are helping to build a more prosperous, well, prosperous communities in all these countries? Take it away. Thank you.

Xinhui Wang:
Okay. Thank you, Selina. Thank you for having me. I’m just wondering, as one of the P2C champions, if I may have one minute more bonus? I’m kidding. It’s okay. The clock is ticking. Okay. Okay. Thank you. You know, actually, what you asked just actually brings me back to June 2022. At that time, ZTE, the company I’m working for, we made a pledge to just construct 400 million U.S. dollar worth ICT infrastructures annually for three countries, let’s say, LDC, LLDC, and SIDs. And additionally, we made another new pledge, which is to dedicate 50,000 hours of ICT lectures globally for the local workforce in need. And I was just quite, you know, proud to announce all these, I would say, pledges are quite in good shape. Over the past year, we actually made more than this. We built over 600 million ICT infrastructures for the target countries and provided more than 10 curricula and 40,000 hours of lectures globally. By the way, in line with the corresponding WSIS X-Line, actually, we are in WSIS Forum. We are just recently recognized for our leadership in corporate transparency and climate change by this CDP. So we just secured our position on the list. Given today is a quite special day, you know, there’s a parallel session happened in another beautiful country, which is Antigua, Barbuda. It’s a UN S4 country. So I just want to focus our implementation on S4 country only. For instance, in Fiji, we have implemented almost more than 20,000 sites. Given in this kind of countries, the, I would say, the electricity shortage and these frequent disasters are quite common problems to be dealt with. So we just had some quite innovative solution, which is we’re going to have almost more than 30% of our base stations be equipped in that countries with a solar powered solution. So in this case, which means we have the ability to mitigate this natural, I would say, natural electricity shortage. And by the way, we also being very deeply engaged into communication and education with local communities. For instance, we just, in a lot of the world’s very hardest to connect countries, we provide communication services to thousands of local schools, which lays the foundation of digital education and empowering local employees. So, you know, our pledges and partnerships with P2C are more than a business endeavor. We don’t just want to make some money or make a profit, but it’s actually inspired by this P2C spirit, just like you just raised. So in the next, I would say, a few days or years, we’ll continue our commitment to build this, sorry, last sentence, just make this very great, amazing number, 100 billion, be achieved as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please, big round of applause.

Sulyna Abdullah:
My friend also, Xinhui Wang, we’re very inspired by what Zetty has done, and we hope that you will continue to support us and continue with your pledges. Thank you. Now, we’re going to travel to the other side of the ocean. We have remotely with us, Ms. Lina Maria Del Vecchio, who is the Executive Director of the Commission on Regulation of Communications of Colombia, and please forgive my very elementary Spanish interpretation. Ms. Del Vecchio, are you here, Lina? Yes. There you are, please. Nice to see you. You have the floor.

Lina Maria Duque Del Vecchio:
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, I would like to share with you the advance of our pledges. So, we work to, from the CRT, we work to contribute with the technical, with our technical capabilities to promote connectivity throughout the national territory in order to reduce digital divide, encourage innovation, and drive the continuous transformation of our sector. Our mission is to regulate the communications market on the regulatory improvement criteria to protect users’ rights, promote competition, investment, service, quality, and pluralism. We issue general and specific regulations related to the competition regime, access, use, interconnection, and quality, as well as we define the conditions of infrastructure sharing for the provision of telecommunications services. That is precisely one of our pledges in the deployment of infrastructure. Therefore, the CRC undertakes activities to facilitate the promote of deployment of the infrastructure, of telecommunications infrastructure, as support of the connectivity and market development. Based on our policies granted by the law, the CRC has the competence to issue opinions related to the existence of barriers to infrastructure deployment in the regional organization of the country’s municipalities at the request of the territorial entity. If the CRC doesn’t find any barriers to infrastructure deployment in that municipality, we issue a certification of non-existence of barriers, which is sent to the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies to include that municipality in a list of potential beneficiaries of new mobile coverage through the project. Today, we already have 806 municipalities that have been certified as free of barriers that represent 73% of the country. To achieve the goal of a digital Colombia, the CRC aims to strengthen the certification strategy in terms of removing the barriers to infrastructure development. We also continue with our strategic focus on regulatory and intelligent innovation, which stems from our vision of a simple, dynamic, transparent and innovative and plural regulatory environment with empowered users to contribute to the country’s development. We make this possible… You have 25 seconds, Lina. We make this possible with our regulatory improvement policy, that is the other pledge, which contemplates the different pillars that lead us to maximize the impact of our regulations. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Sulyna Abdullah:
Thank you, Lina. You made it before the bell rang. Congratulations. Yes, a big hand. And the first two speakers were talking about access. We’re going to turn now to adoption. Brian, you’re on the hot seat. Brian Huseman, Vice President of Amazon, another P2C champion. Three minutes. Thank you, Brian.

Brian Huseman:
Great. Thank you so much. I thank you for having me. Amazon is proud to be one of the early champions of the P2C coalition. And under our original P2C pledge, Amazon Web Services committed to investing hundreds of millions of dollars to provide free cloud computing skills to 29 million people by 2025. And that’s in over 200 countries. And I’m proud to announce that we’ve trained more than 21 million people to date. But also last year, Amazon announced a new initiative called AI Ready. It’s a commitment to provide free skills training to 2 million people globally by 2025. And it consists of AI classes, free classes and university scholarships. And those capacity building programs represent one of the pillars of P2C, which is fostering and adoption of digital transformation. But we also know that in addition, universal and meaningful access to broadband connectivity, another P2C pillar, is also incredibly important. So with that in mind, Amazon has invested more than 10 billion U.S. dollars in what we call Project Kuiper, which is our effort to provide low earth orbit satellite broadband around the world. We’re incredibly excited about that and the potential transformation to connect the underserved and underserved in the world. We’ve been making great progress on Project Kuiper already. We have launched our first two prototype satellites and we’ve had 100% mission success in those. Project Kuiper is going to provide very high broadband speed with low latency. And like we kind of do at Amazon, we’re going to provide a great service at an affordable price. We’ve announced our customer terminals. And even the smallest one, which is going to be the size of like a Kindle device, so very small, will provide 100, provide a megabyte kind of service, 100 megabytes. The larger ones will provide 400 megabytes. And even our business ones provide a gigabyte of service. So we’re incredibly excited by the potential of Project Kuiper. We look forward to working with the IT, with the multi-stakeholder community, with all of you all, to do what we can to help close the digital divide. And Amazon is pleased to be a P2C champion. Thank you.

Sulyna Abdullah:
With 30 seconds to spare. Thank you, Brian. Okay. So it’s on to USAID. I have Chris Verburns, Chief Digital Development Officer and Director of the Technology Division. Chris, are you ready?

Christopher Burns:
Yes, I am. Thank you, Selina. Wonderful. Well, thanks to ITU for inviting USAID to present today. For over 61 years, USAID has led international development and humanitarian assistance programming on behalf of the U.S. government with a focus on saving lives, reducing poverty, strengthening democratic governance, and helping people progress beyond assistance. And, of course, in today’s digital age, that has never been more important as we reset and focus on fostering open, inclusive, secure, and rights-respecting digital ecosystems in countries around the world. I’m thrilled to share an update of our existing pledges. Since I only have 3 minutes and we have 5 pledges, I’ll focus just on 2. The 1st is our digital invest program. This is a flagship initiative under the partnership for growth and infrastructure and investment where we are bringing new blended finance tools to provide capital for last mile connectivity and digital financial services around the world. The program started in 2022, and we’ve already been able to raise over 310Million dollars in investment capital that has supported 68 technology companies in 40 markets. And in doing so have catalyzed over 1.2Billion dollars in follow on funding from 3rd party investors. So far, we’ve created 15,000 jobs and provided services to 10.5Million individuals and 1.2Million small and medium enterprises. A few of our partnerships include financing C squared, helping Liberia construct its 1st open access fiber optic backbone, which covers about 1Million people about 20% of the Liberian population. We’re also supporting Integra partners, 90Million dollar fund to empower tech entrepreneurs to drive access to infrastructure and digital financial services in South and Southeast Asia. That is, including with the win the women program that is promoting female participation in Vietnam, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines. We’re also collaborating with the Microsoft air brand initiative and piloting service delivery in Nigeria and South Africa. And in Malawi, we’re building the 1st Internet exchange point with converged technology networks. That’s just a sample of programs. The 2nd update I want to provide is our youth mappers program. This is active in more than 400 universities and 77 countries, providing the capacity of the youth, the next generation of the world, the leverage open street map, a digital public good in and of itself to provide mapping services to governments in those countries. We’ve been able to leverage to date 23Million edits to open street map, and that includes over 600,000 kilometers of roads and millions of buildings. We’ve done this in Brazil. We’ve done this in Tanzania. We’ve done this in Nigeria and partnership with and UNICEF and others. And it is a wonderful recognition of what youth can do to drive today’s digital age. Thank you.

Sulyna Abdullah:
Right on the dot that deserves a big hand. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chris. And congratulations on the progress that you’ve achieved on your pledges. So having the right to enabling environment is key for digital transformation. So having the right to enabling environment is key for digital transformation. The Communications Authority of Kenya aims to build a connected society through partnerships and innovation in ICT, and to achieve a digitally transformed nation. So I’m going to invite Mary Mungai, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the CA, Communications Authority of Kenya, to tell us more about this pledge and how it’s evolving. Mary, three minutes, all yours.

Mary Mungai:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Maybe I also want to say I thank those who elected me to be the Vice Chair of Directors in Africa. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen and excellencies, it is with great pride that Kenyans join the rest of the dignified members to celebrate both its association with the partners to connect digital initiative, as well as take stock of achievements since our Kigali Rwanda 2022 commitment. As a country, we have continued to pursue the attainment of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with the ICT sector placing special emphasis on SDG number nine. According to this goal, Kenya’s National Regional Master Plan 2022-2032 and the Infrastructure Service Fund initiatives have focused on investing in resilient ICT infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, development of digital skills, and fostering innovation to expedite the realization of our vision of becoming a digitally transformed nation. You may recall that Kenya projected the improvement of upward of $250 million between 2022 and 2027 to deliver on its priority digital development programs. The equivalent translated into a pledge under this partner to connect digital initiative. So far, we have progressed the following. The deployment of 100,000 kilometers of fiber infrastructure under ICT infrastructure enhancement program, clustering the digital superhighway, coupled with the installation of 25,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots, and 1450 digital fairly smart hubs, serving as centers to facilitate digital skills development. We have also established a number of digital skills programs. Also, a rollout of cellular broadband infrastructure, in addition to 177 that had to serve sublocation, thus reducing the existing 3.6 population coverage gap. We have also established a number of digital skills programs to support visually impaired citizens, provision of assistive devices and educational content to a special school for learners with disabilities targeting more than 20,000 learners, digitalization of critical public service across sectors, including the justice, system, education, agriculture, and health. We have also established a number of technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data analytics, and others to hasten the realization of digital transformation. We have established a number of digital skills programs to support visually impaired citizens, provision of assistive devices and educational content to a special school for learners with disabilities targeting more than 20,000 learners, digitalization of critical public service across sectors, including the justice, system, education, agriculture, and health.

Sulyna Abdullah:
Thank you very much, Mary. So, that gave you a glimpse into access adoption and value creation. Now, we’re going to turn to new pledges. So, let me start with Chelsea, who is connecting from South Africa. Chelsea Hornby, Founder and Executive Director of Elle International, a WSIS constituent, and here she is on the screen. Chelsea, you have three minutes. Welcome to the panel. She’s not on the screen, it’s me. Okay, there she is.

Chelsea Hornby:
Thank you so much, and I’m so grateful for this opportunity to share that Elle International has made the following commitments to the Partners to Connect initiative under the focus area of building digital ecosystems. First, to provide patient information, research, education, and diagnostics for millions of women and girls to reduce suffering and improve quality of life. Elle pledges to provision the digital platforms of Elle Health, Elle Studies, and WomenE. Elle Health is our state-of-the-art patient-driven data platform to enable the collection of comprehensive patient data while preserving privacy, ensuring security, and placing the patient in full control, where patients themselves contribute directly to health information. Elle Studies is our state-of-the-art research platform to enable the collection of good quality healthcare data in a trusted and safe way for the management and tracking of chronic disorders and diseases. WomenE is our mobile application to support women and girls with access to trusted sources of information and to support them during their health journey across various stages of life. And this includes the detection of gynecological diseases and disorders, symptoms mapping, fertility care, perimenopause, and menopause support and more. Second, at Elle, we pledge to drive connectivity and digital transformation in communities through the smart menstrual health dispenser, MOXIE, incorporating connectivity through cellular, Wi-Fi, LoRa, and satellite. Now, MOXIE will enable the shared provision of women’s health products across businesses, schools, and community. Third, Elle pledges to support the Elle Sub-Saharan African Consortium for open-sourcing AI models and related artifacts as benchmarks to advance open science in women’s health. Unfortunately, women’s health has been simplified to include only sexual and reproductive health, which meaningfully under-represents the women’s health burden, and such myopia has resulted in failures to advance research related to various women’s health conditions. Therefore, together with these three pledges, Elle is provisioning these platforms in advance of at-home diagnostics commencing with endometriosis. Our partners at Connect aim to make bold moves that inspire… 15 seconds, Chelsea, I beg your pardon, 15 seconds. …aligns with Elle International’s efforts to enable connectivity for the provision of women’s health across Sub-Saharan Africa. Okay. And by leveraging data and technology, we are driving meaningful change and are improving the lives of women and girls around the world. Thank you so much.

Sulyna Abdullah:
Thank you, Chelsea. Thank you for that amazing pledge. Certainly a very unusual one. We thank you for that. Moving on to Microsoft. And Ashutosh is here, representing Microsoft, who is a committed P2C champion and a strong business supporter. Now, you’ve submitted four pledges so far, and you’re on to your fifth. Three minutes. Thank you, Ashutosh. Do you have a mic? Ah.

Ashutosh Chadha:
Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity and to build upon our previous pledges. But if I just would take a step back and talk about where we are. On those pledges, we had committed to actually connect a quarter of a billion people across the world with 100 million in Africa, as well as train nearly 10 million people on skills. And we’re well on the way to achieving and crossing those, so we’ll hear more about that. Today’s pledge is actually building on that. And as we heard this morning, one of the key themes which came across was that no one needs to be left behind and we need to be inclusive in ensuring digital connectivity. The benefits of that reach everyone. So our current pledge is revolved around that concept. We all know that nearly a billion people across the world are living with disabilities. And at Microsoft, we’ve long considered the fact that technology has great potential to provide opportunities to people with disabilities, whether it be in the areas of education, employment, or economic empowerment. The capabilities of technology, particularly in the field of AI, have continued to grow and raise new possibilities for accessibility empowerment. However, one of the biggest challenges that we find today is something called a data desert, which is faced by the research community and innovators all across. Data desert leads to scientific discoveries and innovations being developed without taking into account the needs of certain groups. And the way forward is always going to be to build and nurture partnerships to address this lack of data and information so that we can build and collaboratively build solutions using AI to address the issues of accessibility. Our pledge is basically to support this, and our Microsoft accessibility team, which drives projects globally to use technology to empower people living with disabilities, is going to continue to prioritize partnerships to rapidly accelerate inclusion and representation of people with disabilities in systems, designs, and features of technology, especially including AI. With that clear intent and resolve, we will continue to partner with developer universities, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, governments, and startups and inventors to ensure that as we take an AI-first approach in creating solutions, we ensure that we look at that segment of the society, which is extremely important, to ensure that we enhance work and life for and with global disability communities.

Sulyna Abdullah:
17 seconds to spare. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. Well done. Thank you, Josh. And thank you, Wes, especially excited because this pledge is in response to the drive that we made for AI-related pledges on the occasion of AI for Good, so thank you for that. Claudia. Last but not least, Claudia, who’s in red. You’re outshining the other stage, Claudia. That’s not nice. Now, AT&T is already very committed. You have five pledges, and we’re very excited to learn what more you’re going to pledge today. Please, take it away. Three minutes.

Claudia Selli:
Thank you very much, and I’ll try to beat some records here in terms of timing, but let me start by sharing the fact that AT&T is really sharing the IT goals to promote universal, reliable, secure, and affordable connectivity, and we are a proud supporter of Partner2Connect. Our purpose is to connect people to greater possibilities, and ever since Graham Bell invented the telephone 145 years ago, we have been very connecting people and businesses. And as you know, today, the world is being shaped by the great availability of connectivity, and so it’s even more important to be part, to have access to high-speed broadband connectivity in order to be part and share the benefits of this digital world. As you know, the Digital Coalition has the objective of trying to connect everyone in the world, and by calling out the digital divide, and similarly, AT&T would like to connect the unconnected by focusing particularly on underserved areas and population. And so, in addition to our pledges to Partner2Connect, I’m really happy to share that AT&T has made another commitment, and in fact, we have decided to increase our commitment from 2 billion to 5 billion during this decade in order to connect 25 million people by 2030. And these additional 3 billion euros will really be focused in addressing the connectivity barriers, such as affordability and adoption, and how is AT&T planning to do that? We are planning to do that through our connected center solution. So, for example, efforts such as deploying and distributing laptops or otherwise increasing the availability of AT&T connected centers. And in fact, on top of that, we also partner with public libraries and parent-teacher associations in order to make available, you know, some skilling workshops through our platforms such as ScreenReady and Achievery, which are free platforms for kids to learn and acquire those skills. And we also have another program, which is the Digital Navigator, where we help keep basically people that then help families through the adoption and also through the connected devices. So, while a great deal of progress has been made, we also think that more needs to be done, and that’s why every stakeholder can really make a difference and really, you know, bring and help achieve these objectives. So, thank you so much to the ITU for having me here today.

Sulyna Abdullah:
Thank you. Thank you very much, AT&T. 3 billion dollars. Very impressive amount, and we thank you for that. I had new pledges, and there are two more. This is also very exciting. I have the privilege to announce two pledges that the Government of Canada just recently submitted to P2C. Ladies and gentlemen, the Government of Canada is pleased to announce its investment in computing infrastructure to support AI businesses and researchers in the country through the $2 billion Canadian AI Compute Access Fund. That’s the first one. The second commitment is an investment of $400 million Canadian dollars in the adoption of AI across Canada’s economy, and in the creation of a new Canadian AI Safe Institute to help the country better understand and protect against the risks of advanced AI systems. $2.4 billion. Another big hand of applause. Please join me in celebrating Canada’s pledges. Thank you. So, we’ve come to the end, and I’m pleased to tell you that thanks to all these pledges and others that have been submitted in the past few days, today, Partner2Connect has reached a total of $50.96 billion, and with this, we have crossed the halfway mark of our targeted $100 billion by 2026. Thank you. Was that you, Rob? A little bit louder. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, it’s time for us to close. It’s time for you to do some yoga and enjoy your evening. Today marks a significant moment for both P2C and WSIS, and it could not be timelier with the UN Summit of the Future just around the corner. And right before that, on the 20th and 21st of September, ITU and UNDP will join forces again to showcase the power of digital to the world. Last year, we demonstrated how digital technologies can accelerate progress in about 70% of the SDG targets. This year, we are gearing up for SDG Digital Futures, which will be part of the Digital Futures Track on the UN’s Summit of the Future Action Day on 21st September. ITU and UNDP will be working with the Office of the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Technology in planning the Digital Futures Track. So, we hope to see you in New York, or at least online, which reminds me, thank you very much to the audience, to our participants who have been online with us this evening. I believe there are some 87 of you. Thank you very much for that, and thank you for staying with us in this room to listen to all these very, very exciting announcements. It’s been an amazing event, and we hope that you will continue with this energy tomorrow and the entire week ahead. Pledges, please stay for videos and photos. There is a video to be played, and I’m afraid we’re going to block some of your view because we will be posing in front while you watch the video. Now, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. We’ll see you back tomorrow at the WSIS Plus 20 Forum High-Level Event 2024. This has been the first day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.