About this discussion track:
It is now well-established that telecommunications services and networks are crucial to everyday life, serving as the bedrock of the digital economy and conduit of social, economic, and political activity. But paradoxically, telcos’ crucial role within the society and the enterprise service landscape still requires to be translated into strong returns for the shareholders. In the context of new demands on networks through key developments, including but not limited to Web 3.0 and the role of ICTs in sustainable development, new pressures are coming towards Telecom Operators to invest even more, requiring new ways of doing things, and working closely with diverse groups of stakeholders, including policymakers, other digital space players, satellite service providers, to name a few. The focus for all is to create new value, offer relevant services in the digital economy, and help fulfill national ICT visions that transcend beyond mere connectivity.

This session will explore what the future looks like for all different stakeholders in a meshed world where economic, social and business activities require advanced, resilient and secure communications networks.

About this discussion track:
The ICT Sector is widely acknowledged as a cross-cutting enabler for sustainable development. ICTs are accelerators, amplifiers, and augmenters of change, making it feasible to more flexibly and dynamically reconfigure, and hence transform all aspects of how resources are produced and used. Given that ICT-enabled solutions are driving impact across various sectors, where smart manufacturing and smart agriculture, smart buildings, smart metering, and smart mobility could contribute to achieving more than 70% of the total global emission reduction potential, for example, there are major challenges associated with “sustainability” of Business, Digital Transformation, Resources, Environment, and overall Human Well-being. It is high time that digital space players, policymakers, and regulators champion rectification of various sustainability-related challenges.

This session explores various dimensions of a sustainability-driven digital future, and the types of policies, strategies and measures required to ensure, for example, that ICTs are transformed to become greener, enabling a truly sustainable digital future.

About this discussion track:
The digital economy is made up of many different stakeholders, providing many different types of technologies, infrastructure, specialist knowledge, guidance, and value-adding digital services. To ensure that national visions and associated KPIs, such as digital education or digitalization of the national electricity grid, or e-government can become a reality, all stakeholders need to work toward meeting sustainability and efficiency requirements in the collective interest of all. This is only possible based on deep and long-lasting partnerships that maintain a balance of incentives among key actors. Furthermore, because our dependency on communication technologies - whether provided by Telecom Operators, Satellite Operators, or Internet Companies - coupled with the acceleration of technology innovation, has increased the need for new regulatory tools and policies, there is a longstanding need to foster: trust-building, consumer privacy protection, freedom of speech and security without dampening growth or inhibiting innovation, realizing synergies, leveraging expertise, among other factors unique to each stakeholder group. This will require an agile, flexible and transparent approach to governance along with multi-stakeholder cooperation and collaboration.

This session examines key challenges of the digital world as they relate to partnerships along the digital value-chain. Moreover, it examines new horizons for the ICT ecosystem and for policymakers, and the challenges and opportunities stemming from those horizons.