The first day of the three-day meet of G20’s Digital Economy Working group (DEWG) started Monday in Lucknow and was attended by over 700 guests and 36 speakers including international delegates who discussed issues related to digital public infrastructure, cybersecurity solutions for MSMEs, sustainable development goals, digital initiatives rolled out by the state government, and geo-spatial technologies.
The international delegates who attended the event were from countries like Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, along with the European Union.
The Digital India exhibition was also inaugurated and it showcased innovative solutions based on virtual reality and artificial intelligence like “Ask AI”, “Ask GITA”, “AI Chess” and “AI in daily lives”.
Speaking during the first session on ‘Digital public infrastructure: Sharing implementation experiences of digital identity in various countries”, Jonathan Marskell, Senior Programme Officer, World Bank said that over 850 million people in the world do not have an official ID and the global institution is working in approximately 50 countries, to support the development of digital ID systems, including providing funding of approximately $2 billion.
The session was attended by UIDAI CEO Saurabh Garg, EkStep Foundation CTO Pramod Varma; Ichwan M Nasution from Indonesia; Irina Alexandra Soeffky from Germany and Fabian Delcros from the European Union.
The second session was on ‘Sharing of Cyber Security Solutions for MSMEs’, in which the participants discussed the Cyber Campus of France, the UK’s National Cyber Strategy and Saudi Arabia’s vision of a centralised governance model by 2030. The participants also highlighted the need for capacity building and the impact of cyber threats, current ecosystem trends, and the Global Cyber Alliance’s toolkit for small businesses.
The delegates attending the third session on ‘Digital Public Infrastructure to boost the attainment of SDGs’ included Paulin Basinga from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Keyzom Ngodup Massally from the UNDP, Joshua Bamford from the UK, Melisa Tekeli from Turkey, and Viraj Tyagi from the eGov Foundation, among other guests. The delegates discussed the best practices for collaboration and shared the outcomes of digital public infrastructure initiatives launched by their respective countries . During the fourth session on ‘Showcasing Digital Initiatives of Uttar Pradesh’, the participants analysed initiatives like the upcoming mega data centre in Greater Noida and the single-window system for investors Nivesh Mitra, among others.