In her statement, Ms. Bekele stressed on the urgent need to ensure that the youth, #TeenPreneurs are given a priority and prominence when developing strategies and competencies of advancing the use of technology to solve local needs.
Ms. Bekele also spoke on the panel:
Digital Competencies to benefit from existing and emerging technologies with focus on gender and youth dimension
. She also addressed positive and negative impacts of rapid tech development.
Bekele recommended to the forum and the governments saying,
“The global South has best opportunity to leapfrog in the digital economy instead of reinventing the wheel,”
. On policy, Bekele noted that
there is always a fear that legislating policy is left behind technology development than it does in reality
. She added that,
“
We can lead in Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning and Big Data
”
.
She implored that
Start-ups need to stridently move from talking the blue-print to tangibles in the tech space
and that
next generation tech-preneurship will be led by #Teenpreneurs, who have it in their DNA
.
On big data and other effects of technology, “Opaque algorithms can ‘bake-in’ bias and exclusion,” said Shirley Malcom, head of the directorate of education and human resources at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.On gender divide, Helena Dalli, Malta’s European affairs and equality minister, said “The more we let the gender divide grow, the more economic disparities will grow,” These were some of the recommendations.
You can also download Ms. Bekele’s statements
here
.
Read the UNCTAD CSTD blog that summarizes the panel statements
here
