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In a major step towards making India self-sufficient in the critical area of semiconductors and displays in line with Hon. PM Shri Narendra Modi’s bold vision, Vedanta signed two Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with the Government of Gujarat to set up a semiconductor fab unit, a display fab unit, and a semiconductor assembling and testing unit in Gujarat.

The project envisages a total investment of Rs 1,54,000 crore and will provide employment to around 1 lakh people, attracting electronics ecosystem players across the value chain and putting the state of Gujarat on the global silicon map.

The proposed semiconductor manufacturing fab unit will operate on the 28nm technology nodes and the display manufacturing unit will produce Generation 8 displays catering to small, medium and large applications. Vedanta will hold 60% of the equity in the JV while Foxconn will own 40%. The JV will look at setting up a semiconductor manufacturing plant in the next two years.

Speaking on the signing of the MoUs, Vedanta Chairman Mr. Anil Agarwal, said: “We are delighted to announce that Gujarat will be the location for our display and semiconductor fab ventures. The state is well known globally for being a manufacturing hub, and I hope that India's upcoming, cutting-edge electronics ecosystem will thrive, with every state benefitting to develop their electronic manufacturing hubs. We are privileged to take one step further in supporting Prime Minister Modi's vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat in this strategic sector.”

Semiconductors and displays are critical to establishing India as an electronics hub and will help attract suppliers and device assemblers to set up a base in India. The Indian semiconductor market was valued at $27.2 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR of nearly 19% to reach $64 billion in 2026.

The decision to set up the project in Gujarat comes after Vedanta and Foxconn announced in February that they will form a joint venture company in India. Vedanta has a presence in the electronics and technology business through group companies Avanstrate Inc. and Sterlite Technologies. Hon Hai Technology Group ("Foxconn") (TWSE:2317) is the world's largest electronics manufacturer.

The AWS AI & ML Scholarship is a new education and scholarship program aimed at preparing underrepresented and underserved students globally for careers in Machine Learning (ML). The program uses the new AWS DeepRacer Student League to teach students foundational ML concepts by giving them hands-on experience training in machine learning models for autonomous race cars while providing educational content centered on ML fundamentals and mentorship from Amazon and Intel experts.

Delivered in collaboration with Intel and supported by the talent transformation platform Udacity, the program allows students from around the world to access dozens of hours of free training modules and tutorials on the basics of ML and its real-world applications.

About 2,000 qualifying students will win a scholarship for the AI Programming with Python Udacity Nanodegree program, designed to give scholarship recipients the programming tools and techniques fundamental to ML. Students will also receive tailored mentoring and career guidance through monthly events with top industry experts in the field. The top 500 students will be awarded a second more advanced scholarship, where they will receive a full year of one-on-one mentorship from tenured Amazon and Intel technology experts for career insights and advice.

To get started with the AWS AI & ML Scholarship, visit awsaimlscholarship.com.

The current landscape of cities is changing, and “Sustainability” has become both an important keyword and a goal which cites all over the world strive to achieve. Pursuing sustainability means not only reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but also improving accessibility for all of the users of city services, as well as ensuring the profitability of those sustainable services.

Recent developments in emerging technologies, especially in the mobility sector, have made the shift toward sustainable societies and cities possible. A new report, jointly published by PwC Consulting and Google, introduces the ideal state of a sustainable smart city, by using various mobility-related use cases.

You can read the full report here.

Urban transportation has the most significant potential to advance in electrification projects, accounting for more than 40% of the sector's emissions. The incorporation of electric buses in mobility has accelerated the energy transition of cities, reducing pollution by displacing fossil fuels and delivering a better service.

Santiago de Chile and Bogotá in Colombia were pioneers in Latin America, marking the starting point of a revolutionary journey that initially seemed like a dream. Still, with the conviction inside Enel Group, it was only a matter of time for electric mobility, particularly electric public transport, to become the new normal.

Thus, innovative models based on public-private partnerships were born: not pilot projects but the beginning of a journey that would have no turning back. By the end of 2022, more than 3000 electric buses will circulate through the streets of Santiago and Bogotá. By 2040, all public transportation in both cities will be electric. In such a context, Enel X, using Enel X Way technology, confirmed its leadership in electric public transport, reaching a market share of 88% in Chile and 55% in Colombia.

The projects running in both countries have proven that operating and energy costs of electric buses, compared to diesel buses, were reduced on an average by 75%. It ceases to emit approximately 20mil tons CO2/year.

Enel X marks an important milestone with the construction of more than 21 e-buses charging depots responsible for supplying energy to electric buses with intelligent and flexible charging technology and energy consumption optimization. In addition, the buses can be provided with 100% renewable and certified energy, closing a virtuous circle from the origin to their operation on the streets.

Solar energy and the reuse of wastewater are integrated into the developed infrastructure. With this design, electric buses are inserted into circular economy models, improving the citizens' overall quality of life.

Livestreamed in collaboration with McKinsey & Company

Lighthouses Live: How are Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies transforming manufacturing and supply chains to overcome global disruptions?

This session, created in collaboration with Mckinsey & Partners, highlighted the best of the Global Lighthouse Network to illuminate the opportunities available to organizations that scale digital operations and improve workforce engagement across the value chain, delivering resilience, productivity, and environmental sustainability.

McKinsey's Enno de Boer opened the meeting, saying the manufacturing sector must "maintain sustainability and accelerate the transition towards renewable energy while addressing energy market disruptions."

Leaders of the new Global Lighthouses, William Cho, Chief Executive Officer at LG Electronics, Chen Yanshun, Chairman Chairman at BOE Technology Group and Kåre Schultz, President & Chief Executive Officer at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, all agreed that 4IR technology has been critical to transforming their manufacturing businesses.

Panelists included: William (Joo-wan) Cho, Chief Executive Officer at LG Electronics; Kåre Schultz, President & Chief Executive Officer at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries; Chen Yanshun, Chairman at BOE Technology Group; Christine Bastian, EVP & Chief People Officer at Western Digital; Åsa Tamsons, SVP & Head of Business Technologies at Ericsson; Kathy Wengel, EVP & Chief Global Supply Chain Officer at Johnson & Johnson; Katy George, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company; Francisco Betti, Head of Advanced Manufacturing and Production at World Economic Forum; and Enno de Boer, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company.

Read more here.

McKinsey has identified the tech trends that matter most.

"These trends may not represent the coolest, most bleeding-edge technologies. But they’re the ones drawing the most venture money, producing the most patent filings, and generating the biggest implications for how and where to compete and the capabilities you need to accelerate performance."

Read more here.

J.P. Morgan provides insights into the evolving technological infrastructure of the metaverse - highlighting the business opportunities and sorting through the hype versus the reality.

Read the more here.

As emerging technologies help the world to address pressing global issues including climate change and rapid urbanization, how can we ensure that progress doesn't come at the cost of individual safety and privacy?

That's the question driving a new global consensus for security measures for Internet-connected home and wearable devices. The global market size for the consumer interest of things is expected to grow to $154 billion by 2028, from $45 billion today.

Consumer groups, tech companies and non-profit organizations agreed on five baseline standards of protection for consumers. These standards have been endorsed by more than 100 organizations and major tech companies.

Here are what partners are saying about these efforts:

Today, electricity grid operators are playing an important role in managing the infrastructure underpinning the energy transition process, thus facilitating the move towards decarbonization and electrification.

Enel has designed and launched Grid Futurability, a new industrial approach to guarantee a high quality, accessible and reliable service via an efficient and digitalized grid, thus enabling a more sustainable lifestyle through the use of electricity.

The company aims to reach over 77 million end users by 2024, 64% of whom will be digitalized thanks to smart meter technology. This means more than 48 million installations around the world. At the same time, they are working on an innovative, integrated operating model to comprehensively manage the networks, leveraging the opportunities offered by digitalization and by emerging technologies.

Digitization has improved the capability of grids to host energy resources and has removed barriers on businesses and consumers, integrating vulnerable groups into the energy transition framework. For example, by providing new services for rural residents and small businesses, and supporting customers with economic hardship, among others.

A more electrified world that relies on renewable energy requires resilient, participatory and sustainable electricity grids to accelerate the growth of all communities.

Read more about this initiative here

Today, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with BCG, has launched its latest white paper, The data-driven journey towards manufacturing excellence.

This white paper introduces the Manufacturing Data Excellence Framework – a tool that identifies high-value opportunities for data-driven applications and the technological and organizational enablers required to build and scale them – and sheds light on the best practices, real-life use cases and success factors implemented by the leading organizations that applied the framework across their manufacturing facilities.

The white paper also describes three stages of manufacturing data excellence identified through ongoing workshops and consultations among members of the initiative, as well as through the deployment of the Manufacturing Data Excellence Framework:

(REUTERS) Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Monday became the first company to hit a $3 trillion stock market value, before ending the day a hair below that milestone, as investors bet the iPhone maker will keep launching best-selling products as it explores new markets such as automated cars and virtual reality.

Read more here.

Qatar Development Bank (QDB) is launching its entrepreneurship conference, ROWAD Qatar, in celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week. As part of QDB’s ongoing commitment to supporting SMEs, this year's theme for ROWAD Qatar is ‘Digital Transformation & Thriving in the New Economy’.

The conference takes place 8-10 November, with the opening ceremony featuring a panel discussion on “Market Penetration: Reorienting for Growth Opportunities in a Post-Pandemic Recovery”.

Aramco is using 4IR technologies to transform its business models and value chains, bringing compelling financial, operational and environmental benefits.

As part of the Global Lighthouse Network – a group of industrial sites setting the pace in implementing industry 4.0 at scale – Aramco announced that three of its facilities have now been accredited as part of this network.

“By harnessing the power of data, analytics and automation, manufacturing processes have been transformed, achieving significant advances in efficiency, safety, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions” said Nabil Al-Nuaim, Aramco’s Chief Digital Officer.

He added, “We have seen a 20% reduction in unplanned maintenance and a 3.8% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Energy use per barrel of oil processed has also been cut by 14.5%.”

Read more here.

The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Deloitte, today releases the report Governing Smart Cities: Policy Benchmarks for Ethical and Responsible Smart City Development.

As cities increasingly turn to technology to solve problems, there are still outstanding questions around ethics, security, equity, privacy and financial sustainability. This analysis shines a light on the regulatory gaps that exist in cities around the world and proposes solutions to closing governance gaps so that cities can apply technology to addressing urban challenges.

“Cities have an array of opportunities to become more resilient and sustainable," said Miguel Eiras Antunes, Global Smart Cities Leader, Deloitte Global. "Technology is an enabler but, to fulfill its full potential, cities need to revise their governance, operational, and financing models. Here lies the biggest challenge cities face."

He added: “Now is the moment for a great urban transformation. Addressing urban challenges through the lenses of sustainability, inclusion, and technology is critical to develop and implement a roadmap to guide cities with their governance of smart technology and make an impact that matters.”

Read the report here

The internet has given criminals infinite scale for near zero cost. Hospitals and oil pipelines have been shut by cyber attacks in the past months, and just last week an attack on a Florida IT provider led to supermarkets being shut across Sweden.

To raise the global cyber resilience and expand cross-industries cooperation against cyberthreats, Sberbank has organized Cyber Polygon, an international capacity building initiative with over 200 companies from 48 countries.

Cyber Polygon combines a technical training for corporate teams and an online conference featuring senior officials from international organizations and corporations analyzing the key risks of digitalization and sharing best practices for secure ecosystem development.

The training enables organisations to assess their cyber resilience, exchange best practices and bring tangible results to the global community.

Read more and follow Cyber Polygon here, starting at 11 a.m. CEST.

Honda has announced a new startup called Ashirase, which has launched its first technologically advanced product. The company is developing an in-shoe navigation system to support the visually impaired individuals with walking. Honda aims to begin sales by March 2023.

The Ashirase uses a smartphone app and a 3D vibration device with a motion sensor that's attached inside the show. With the use of vibrations, the Ashirase will tell the user when to go straight, turn right, turn left, and stop. Honda said that the product should enable an intuitive understanding of the route so users don't have to constantly mindful of directions for a safer and more relaxed walk.

DeepMind, the Alphabet-owned lab will work with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDI) to treat Chagas disease and Leishmaniasis.

Scientists traditionally spend years in laboratories mapping protein structures.

But last year, DeepMind's AlphaFold program was able to achieve the same accuracy in a matter of days.

AI can be a gamechanger - especially for some neglected diseases where the pathogens are unknown - by "predicting protein structures for previously unsolvable protein structures".

The BBC reports, "Last year, the AI program was used to map some Sars-Cov-2 virus proteins. And virologists used this information to better understand how the virus behaved.

"DeepMind will also be publishing a peer-reviewed paper detailing the workings of its system, providing free access to AlphaFold for the scientific community. And it plans to collaborate on tackling other diseases in future."

Dell explains how Europe can build back better by laying the foundations for the digital cities of tomorrow.

"With the EU expected to approve national recovery plans in the coming weeks, it’s crucial that funding goes into building a modern and future ready “urban digital core “for the cities of the future”. For us, Digital Cities are more than just a concept – they’re a movement for the betterment of our societies, communities, and businesses."

Read more here.

Anyone who has been asked to show their identity document (ID) for proof of age before buying a bottle of wine, cigarettes or fireworks knows how inconvenient it can be if you don’t have the right document with you. However, a trip home to fetch your ID can usually remedy the situation.

Resorting to fake IDs is unlikely to work because of the rise of digital IDs that are chipped and connected and far less easy to copy. Although putting petty criminals out of business is one happy effect of these advances, there are much bigger benefits—advantages that can help reshape the world. While not having an ID when making a purchase is a minor inconvenience, the solution—a digital ID—could prove to be a game-changer for the developing world...

Read more here.

Huawei has launched a "best practices" paper for managing cybersecurity - the Huawei Product Security Baseline.

It has also opened its largest Global Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Transparency Center in Dongguan, China.

The company calls on "All stakeholders in the digital space — including governments and regulators, industry and standards organizations, communication service and technology providers, and digital service providers — share a joint responsibility to address cyberspace challenges and improve the level of cybersecurity."

Click here to download the Huawei Product Security Baseline.

Google is making changes to its advertising business after a landmark anti-trust ruling in France.

Reuters reports, "The deal with the French competition watchdog could help rebalance the power over advertising in favour of publishers, which held sway over the business in the pre-internet era but lost control with the rapid rise of Google and Facebook."

The settlement, is the first time Google will make changes to its ads business, which brings in the bulk of its revenue, and represents a milestone for privacy laws governing data.

Read Google's blog, "Some changes to our ad policy".

Huawei's Catherine Chen says the interplay between societal norms and technology will be "one of the key drivers of economic growth over the next decade".

Read more here.

As a result of a rapidly changing cyber-threat landscape, it has become clear that boards, especially, need stronger foundations to govern cyber risks effectively. The Forum, in collaboration with its partners, has developed six principles for directors in governing cyber risk.

Understanding the economic drivers and impact of cyber risk

A case study from VisibleRisk, a Team8 company working with Arvest Bank, illustrates the application of the principle that board directors must understand the economic drivers and impact of cyber risk. This means that enterprise decision-making requires analysis of the economics of cyber risk – through scenario planning and quantitative measurement of cyber risk against strategic objectives.

"Cybersecurity is recognized as a critical risk factor enterprises wrestle with in the digital economy. In confronting cyber risk, controls-based risk assessments have to this point enabled companies to identify critical programme and technology deficiencies and plan improvements. … An evolved cyber risk assessment enables organizations to align its cyber strategy to its business objectives. This alignment requires business leaders to understand the financial impact cyber risk poses to their operations. … Cyber risk quantification (CRQ), enables improved decision-making by informing executives whether their businesses should accept risk, implement defenses, or leverage insurance."

Board directors encourage systemic resilience and collaboration

A case study from SWIFT, a partner organization involved in the Forum’s Cyber Risk and Corporate Governance Initiative, illustrates the application of the principle that board directors encourage systemic resilience and collaboration.

It is no longer sufficient just to ensure the cybersecurity of your own enterprise; rather, cyber resilience demands that organizations work in concert. Board directors must understand that only collective action and partnership can meet the systemic cyber-risk challenge effectively.

“While all SWIFT customers are individually responsible for the security of their own environments, a concerted industry-wide effort was required to strengthen the cyber-resilience of the banking ecosystem as a whole. The Customer Security Programme, or CSP, was launched in response to these sophisticated and well-resourced cyberattacks. CSP is a comprehensive, multi-year, multi-facetted initiative with many stakeholders. … Built on overarching principles, CSP works in partnership with the community and is designed to reinforce the cyber resilience of the global banking system. Given its breadth and depth and importance in the market, the CSP programme is subject to strong governance.”

Catherine Chen, Corporate Senior Vice President and BOD Member at Huawei, addressed a student-led initiative today at The St Gallen Symposium. She said,

"As more devices feature connectivity, more services go online, and more critical infrastructures rely on real-time data exchanges, so must governments worldwide ensure that everyone is protected by the highest security standards. Only a common set of rules can guarantee a level of security that creates trust in technology."

"The failure rates of digital transformations remain high because the human factor is often underestimated.

Digital transformation is not just about technology: It is also, above all, about people. This makes it complex - and therefore requires new approaches to managing change, dealing with fears and new demands on employees, building new leadership styles, fostering trust, empowerment and growth mindset, and successfully unlocking the full potential of IoT!"

Tune in to Siemens' podcast on how to unlock the potential of IoT.

The latest figures show there are 4.6 billion people worldwide using the internet - 316 million of them joining in the last 12 months alone.

Countering harmful content online has been a focus of The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (including Partners Facebook, Google, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Omnicom and more) which has partnered with the Forum to improve the safety of digital environments, addressing harmful and misleading media while protecting consumers and brands.

It was also the centre of a panel at GTGS today - Countering Harmful Content.

Simon Milner, Vice-President, Public Policy, Asia-Pacific, Facebook Inc. said companies need to have measurement and be transparent, but they also wanted to see regulation that holds business to account - what he called a systems-based approach.

Watch the entire session featuring Mina Al-Oraibi, Editor-in-Chief, The National; Julie Inman Grant, eSafety Commissioner, Office of the eSafety Commissioner; Simon Milner, Vice-President, Public Policy, Asia-Pacific, Facebook Inc.; Lene Wendland, Chief, Business and Human Rights Unit, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and Cathy Li, Head of Media, Entertainment and Sport Industries, World Economic Forum.

Read more about the impact of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media and the Forum's partnership.

In today's Driving Circular Growth with Data session at GTGS, Shunichi Miyanaga, Chairman of the Board, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, discussed the importance of the sustainability of the circular economy - to use less - "longer, and smarter".

He noted that the company has been working on products that make use of waste material and 3D printing, and has been developing a number of projects that make use of clean hydrogen power, while working with technology to use ammonium as fuel instead of coal.

Kajiyama Hiroshi, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, also spoke about the necessity of laying a foundation for a carbon-neutral future, adding that Japan boasts a number of promising decarbonization technologies.

He said he's met with a number of business leaders about the issue, adding, "the whole world needs to work together" to embed more circular practices into peoples' everyday lives.

Watch the full session here.

The amount of data the world accumulates is growing exponentially every year. Organizations and governments are investing in new technology to enable data economies to leverage this commodity for better outcomes.

Based on the Data for Common Purpose Initiative (DCPI), the Forum, in collaboration with PwC, Visa and the Imperial College London, published the Data-driven Economies: Foundations for Our Common Future at GTGS. The paper recommends creating new governance models that combine data from various origins, including personal, commercial and/or government sources.

It introduces five requirements that systems and governance should meet and highlights use cases from industries and jurisdictions worldwide to illustrate the possibilities data sharing could unlock for the public good.

How economies can scale up efficient data-sharing was discussed during the GTGS session Making Data Work for All, featuring Victor Manuel Muñoz Rodriguez. Director General of the Presidency of Colombia; Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM; Robert B. Hedges, Senior Vice-President, Global Strategic Initiatives, Visa, and Jan Vapaavuori, Mayor of Helsinki.

Space is a critical element of our modern life and will become increasingly relevant in upcoming years with capabilities that only dedicated space technologies can deliver - from AI to robotics, advanced manufacturing and materials.

The most exciting space technologies and solutions for space sustainability were discussed at the GTGS21 session The Next Frontier: Space Technologies, featuring Airbus, Planet Labs, the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology of the United Arab Emirates, X Prize Foundation and Virgin Galactic.

Sarah bint Yousif Al-Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technology, United Arab Emirates, highlighted the inspirational impact of space exploration and how it is transforming entire societies; Planet Labs' Co-Founder and CEO William Marshall said that satellite technology could help with at least 13 UN Sustainable Development Goals; X Price Foundation CEO Anousheh Ansari underlined how the incredible amount of new data from space will allow us to better understand weather systems and changes in civilizations, and Telecom Airbus Senior Vice-President Francois Gaullier explained how the pandemic showed it is an absolute necessity to have people connected everywhere - with space enabling new solutions to allow this transition.

Watch the full session here.

Siemens’ Jim Hagemann Snabe joined the Technology Governance Outlook session at GTGS this week and offered valuable insights into the relationship we will have with technology as we move forward.

He touched on the issue of jobs and reskilling, causes for optimism as tech looks set to solve the world’s biggest problems and the importance of bringing a moral compass into the tech world that would stand up just as well in the “normal world”.

How to handle the transition

“We don’t need to protect jobs, we need to protect people. We need to reskill people.”

He spoke about the “active role” that companies should take, and cited an initiative at Siemens to reskill employees prior to restructuring - so that even when people leave the company, they are better equipped to find work outside. He says this is “good for people and it’s good business” and “the restructuring costs – spending money to give people skills for the future – seems like a much better way to handle the transition.”

A revolution from two sides

He suggested a top down and bottom up approach to tech governance. He said there are three questions to ask and answer from a governance point of view:

1. How do we use data without losing privacy?

2. How do we use platforms without creating monopolies?

3. And how do we use AI without losing control and our democracies?

And then he explained, “I think we need some regulation there, but not too much. We need a bottom up revolution which is about inspiring people who actually use technology to be responsible and do what you would do in normal life. In normal life, you don’t steal. If you send a letter by post you don’t expect the mailman to open the letter… There is a fundamental moral human compass that needs to be taken into the digital world.”

He says ideally you get more data, more AI - but used in a responsible way. With developers and leaders who ask the right questions.

Watch the full session here.

With people living longer than ever before, new ideas are needed to reshape the experience and potential of a longer life. What innovative solutions are available to maximize citizens' financial and personal health?

How the world will support healthy ageing was the topic of the GTGS session The Next Frontier: Healthy Ageing, featuring the Yicai Research Institute, Sompo Holdings, the Cabinet Office of Japan, Johnson & Johnson, Deloitte and AARP.

Kengo Sakurada from Sompo Holdings said an ageing society was the future of the world that could not only improve quality of life but boost the economy by billions. Johnson & Johnson's Sophie Guerin said sustainable economic growth will rest on inclusive companies, and Deloitte's Stephanie Allen said technology to help healthy ageing needs to be used in a socially responsible way - protecting data, and providing clinicians and citizens with confidence to access technology for health.

Watch the full session here.

There is no better time than now to address agile governance - President of the World Economic Forum Borge Brende said during the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world leaped ahead five years in terms of digital uptake.

Experts from Apolitical, the Cabinet Office of Japan, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Lord Callanan, Minister for Climate Change and Corporate Responsibility, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the United Kingdom - discussed how business, working with governments, must lead powerfully in the Fourth Industrial Revolution to ensure future success.

Watch the entire GTGS session, Transformation in Action: Technology Leadership.

To kick off our Global Technology Governance Summit, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff and YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki shared important messages on the future of technology.

Marc Benioff is optimistic that technology can be used to improve the state of the world. He sees climate change as a critical underpinning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and a means to harness data and use technology in ways that can make the world more sustainable. He welcomes the idea that CEOs are committing to transparent reporting and sharing of data when it comes to achieving milestones towards the SDGs, for example.

Susan Wojcicki called for more consistency and collaboration in governance, highlighting the potential of technology to transform education and learning, job creation and enable significant medical advances.

She highlighted the challenges around speech and what should or should not be allowed on platforms, especially regarding rules in different jurisdictions.

Read more about what heads of state and business leaders have been discussing at the Forum's Global Technology Governance Summit HERE.

5G could significantly reshape every aspect of how we live our lives and virtually every industry - from agriculture and manufacturing to healthcare and mobility.

As with all technological advancements, the benefits are balanced by the risks. There will be more and more connected devices creating new security challenges.

AIG identifies the benefits and risks of 5G technology in its latest report How 5G will change industries and cyber risks. The report defines the role of Risk Managers in the transition to 5G and how data and analysis will allow executives to shape new business strategies and prepare for potential unforeseen, unintended or accidental consequences.

At today's Closing the Digital Divide session at GTGS, Apollo Hospitals emphasized the point that healthcare is not about getting people to hospital - but about using digital technology to enable people to get well from the comfort of their homes.

Platforms like integrated pharmacies will become more and more relevant in the coming months and years ahead, ensuring universal healthcare in the digital age.

While digital technologies have enabled hundreds of millions to participate online during the pandemic, the 3.7 billion people without internet connectivity have fallen further behind. Watch the full GTGS session to see more of the most urgent and promising innovations in bridging the digital divide globally.

The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Deloitte, has launched a set of reports at GTGS that focus on how technology will drastically revolutionize the future of medicine, information, economics, mental health and education.

Combining insights from the history of computing, the practical lens of futurism and the imaginative signposts offered by four fictional stories of life in 2030-something, this report aims to equip leaders with the tools they need to more accurately imagine the future and plan accordingly

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought long-term health inequities to global attention and inspired consideration of how to deliver high-quality healthcare to all, even in inaccessible locations. With the innovative use of delivery drones emerging as a potential solution, this report focuses on drone use in Rwanda and Ghana, and how this programme can be broadened to bring additional benefits.

This toolkit provides governments, regulators and companies with the instruments to protect personal data, ensure high quality of service and address safety concerns with the rise in digital and behavioural mental healthcare.

Read more about the impact: New toolkit protects users from thousands of unregulated mental health apps.

"With 99% of businesses reporting active investment in big data and AI, it’s clear that all businesses are beginning to recognize the power of data to transform our world of work. While all leaders recognize the needs and benefits of becoming data-driven, only 24% have successfully created a data-driven organization. That is because transformation is not considered holistically and instead leaders focus on business, tools and technology and talent in silos. Usually leaving skill acquisition amongst leaders and the broader organization for last. It’s no wonder that 67% of leaders say they are not comfortable accessing or using data."

Adecco says, it's time to train them. Read more here.

Accenture launces a new report on how to optimize cloud for business, encouraging companies to ask themselves five questions:

1. How should the operating model change?

2. What new skills do I need?

3. How should I use automation?

4. How can I enforce governance through code?

5. Who’s responsible for security?

Read more about a new IT paradigm in Accenture’s Ascend with Cloud.

Nokia’s Pekka Lundmark talks about the power of “Big tech, with a local impact”, highlighting a stream of new deals with “our traditional customer base of telcos, others with webscales, government agencies, commercial ports, transport hubs and other partners.”

Referring to a recent paper by Nokia Bell Labs, ‘Industrial IoT networks: how 5G is transforming industry verticals’, he also outlines the positive implications for industry in terms of productivity, sustainability and worker safety with the transition to 5G.

Lundmark says, “the result is we are looking at an economic gain of up to seven percent of global GDP, or $8 trillion, by 2030.”

Read more here.

25 businesses, including Forum partners, Mastercard, IBM, Visa and Toyota have called on the G7 to create a new body to help co-ordinate how member states tackle issues ranging from artificial intelligence to cyber security.

As we head towards the Global Technology Governance Summit, there is a groundswell of intention to get tech right by putting the common principles and ethical frameworks in place.

See more here.

Facebook has been trialling the use of Instagram photos (with no tagging) to train an algorithm to learn to recognize the image by itself. The idea is to remove potential for human bias in the tagging of images.

Results show that the algorithm is able to correctly identify images with 84.5% accuracy.

"This approach is known as self-supervised learning," says Facebook AI’s Chief Scientist Yann LeCun, "it’s one of the most promising ways to build machines that have the background knowledge, or 'common sense', to tackle tasks that are far beyond today’s AI. We’ve already seen major advances in natural language processing (NLP) as a result, where self-supervised pretraining of very large models on enormous amounts of text has led to breakthroughs in question answering, machine translation, natural language inference, and more."

Read more here.

Digital tools launched in a Japanese smart city that can send disaster alerts to safeguard residents are part of an optional technology push aiming to overcome social and economic challenges, while also allaying privacy fears.

The smartphone alerts were introduced in Aizuwakamatsu city, Fukushima prefecture, last week by consultancy firm Accenture, which has worked with researchers to revitalize the city using technology since a devastating earthquake in 2011.

Read more here.