Thammasat University students interested in digital management, artificial intelligence (AI), development studies, futurology, sociology, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 9 January Zoom webinar on Towards the SDGs and Beyond: How Can Global Digital Society Accelerate Transformations?
The event, on Thursday, 9 January 2025 at 1:30pm Bangkok time, is presented by the United Nations University (UNU) in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan and Keio University.
The UNU website explains, in part:
On 9 January 2025, UNU and the Keio University xSDG Lab will co-organize the symposium “Towards the SDGs and Beyond: How Can Global Digital Society Accelerate Transformations?”
The symposium will discuss and explore how digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI), which are rapidly and dramatically transforming our world, can bring about new possibilities for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and long-term sustainable development, particularly in the context of the Global Digital Compact.
The Global Digital Compact was adopted as an annex to the Pact for the Future, a key outcome of the United Nations Summit of the Future, held in September 2024. The Compact is a comprehensive framework for global governance of digital technology and artificial intelligence.
The goal of the Global Digital Compact is an inclusive, open, sustainable, fair, safe and secure digital future for all. To achieve this goal, the Compact includes five objectives and thirteen principles, and a series of commitments and actions based on each objective. The Compact is an agreement that centres on utilizing digital technologies towards achieving the SDGs. This is outlined in the Compact’s first objective, to “close all digital divides and accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals”, with each supporting commitment and action linked to a relevant SDG.
This symposium will shed light on how the Global Digital Compact and use of digital technologies will accelerate transformations in achieving a sustainable future.
Tentative Programme
Opening Remarks
Prof. Norichika Kanie, Professor, Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance
Keynote Speech
“Global Digital Compact and the Private Sector” (TBC)
Prof. Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector, United Nations University; Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
Discussion
“Towards the SDGs and Beyond: How Can Global Digital Society Accelerate Transformations?” (TBC)
Moderator:
Ms. Hiroko Kuniya, Independent Journalist
Speakers:
Prof. Jun Murai, Professor, Keio University
Mr. Mitsuhiko Ida, Government Affairs Director, Microsoft Japan
Prof. Norichika Kanie
Closing Remarks
Ambassador Kazuhiko Nakamura, Director-General for Global Issues, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
The TU Library collection includes several books about different aspects of the digital society.
Students are invited to register at this link:
https://connections.unu.edu/civicrm/event/register?id=634&reset=1
The United Nations (UN) website explains:
Commitments and actions
Negotiated by 193 Member States and informed by global consultations, the Compact commits governments to upholding international law and human rights online and to taking concrete steps to make the digital space safe and secure.
The Compact recognizes the critical contributions of the private sector, technical communities, researchers and civil society to digital cooperation. It calls on all stakeholders to engage in realizing an open, safe and secure digital future for all.
- Close all digital divides and deliver an inclusive digital economy
- Connect all people, schools and hospitals to the Internet
- Make digital technologies more accessible and affordable to everyone, including in diverse languages and formats
- Increase investment in digital public goods and digital public infrastructure
- Support women and youth innovators and small and medium enterprises
- Build an inclusive, open, safe, and secure digital space
- Strengthen legal and policy frameworks to protect children online
- Ensure that the Internet remains open, global, stable and secure
- Promote and facilitate access to independent, fact-based and timely information to counter mis- and disinformation
- Strengthen international data governance and govern AI for humanity
- Support the development of interoperable national data governance frameworks
- Establish an international scientific panel on AI and a global AI policy dialogue
- Develop AI capacity-building partnerships and consider options for a Global Fund on AI
The Compact reads, in part:
Global Digital Compact
- Digital technologies are dramatically transforming our world. They offer immense potential benefits for the well-being and advancement of people and societies and for our planet. They hold out the promise of accelerating the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
- We can only achieve this through strengthened international cooperation that closes all digital divides between and within countries. We recognize the challenges that these divides pose for many countries, in particular developing countries, which have pressing development needs and limited resources.
- We recognize that the pace and power of emerging technologies are creating new possibilities but also new risks for humanity, some of which are not yet fully known. We recognize the need to identify and mitigate risks and to ensure human oversight of technology in ways that advance sustainable development and the full enjoyment of human rights.
- Our goal is an inclusive, open, sustainable, fair, safe and secure digital future for all. This Global Digital Compact sets out the objectives, principles, commitments and actions we undertake to achieve it in the non-military domain.
- We have strong foundations on which to build. Our digital cooperation rests on international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, international human rights law and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
We remain committed to the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society reflected in the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action 18 and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. The United Nations provides a critical platform for the global digital cooperation we need, and we will harness existing processes to do so.
- Our cooperation must be agile and adaptable to the rapidly changing digital landscape. As Governments, we will work in collaboration and partnership with the private sector, civil society, international organizations, the technical and academic communities and all other stakeholders, within their respective roles and responsibilities, to realize the digital future we seek. […]
Principles
Our cooperation will harness digital technologies to advance all human rights, including the rights of the child, the rights of persons with disabilities and the right to development:
Gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls and their full, equal and meaningful participation in the digital space are essential to close the gender digital divide and advance sustainable development. Our cooperation will empower all women and girls, encourage leadership of women, mainstream a gender perspective and counter and eliminate all forms of violence, including sexual and gender-based violence that occurs through or is amplified by the use of technology;
Digital technologies unlock new capabilities and opportunities for advancing environmental sustainability. Our cooperation will leverage digital technologies for sustainability while minimizing their negative environmental impacts; (f) Equitable and meaningful inclusion in the digital economy requires tackling existing concentrations of technological capacity and market power.
Our cooperation will aim to ensure that the benefits of digital cooperation are fairly distributed and do not exacerbate existing inequalities or impede the full achievement of sustainable development;
Accessible and affordable data and digital technologies and services are essential to enable every person to participate fully in the digital world.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)