Speech of Mei Lin Fung at roundtable dialogue about South-South and triangular cooperation for building regional capacities for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI)” organized by the UN Office for South-South Cooperation held on the side of the 2024 High-Level Political Forum
I am Mei Lin Fung, co-founder of People Centered Internet alongside Vint Cerf. It
is a great honor to be here today as one of the few women on this high-level panel.
In fact, I have been the only person, a woman and Asian to work with Vint Cerf
and Douglas Engelbart, forefathers of the Internet. Engelbart predicted that we
need technology and social institutions to support our collective efforts to foster
innovation and collaboration across our global regions. I am especially pleased to
speak alongside my colleague from SE Asia, Ted Chan, representing youth and
Asian entrepreneurs, whose contributions are vital for our future. While I have
lived 4 decades in Silicon Valley and a tech pioneer who helped to invent
Customer Relationship Management, I was born and grew up in the global South.
Yesterday Vint Cerf and I spoke alongside Doreen Bogdan Martin the Secretary
General of the ITU at the Royal Society in London, the birthplace of modern
science to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Internet: We noted and reinforced
the Royal Society’s mission that Science must serve Humanity. Digital, the
Internet and AI give us the opportunity to re-imagine Science in a digital age
facilitating opportunity for everyone, everywhere.
Today, I want to focus us on the crucial role of regional corridors ecosystems in
advancing sustainable development, particularly for the Global South. Recently, at
the Global Symposium of Regulators, I was invited by the ITU to Kampala
Uganda and highlighted the importance of regional cooperation and local
community empowerment with data-driven scientific experimental sandboxes for
digital transformation and regulation. My contributions to the G7 policies for
Germany, Japan, and Italy have centered on supporting local communities and
developing data cooperatives that allow for multiple stakeholder perspectives while
delivering collective benefits. It is very significant for me that we are meeting in
the Amartya Sen conference room – his economic thought leadership was cited in a
recent paper I authored for the global SME Financing forum. These initiatives are
designed to increase the prosperity of households by empowering local MSMEs to
meet local needs AND enabling them to integrate into the global value chain and
leverage global networks for learning. It is POSSIBLE to achieve SDG 1 by 2030.
Firstly, we must emphasize regional-level action and regulation. While hackathons
and innovative solutions are abundant, their impact remains limited without an
enabling environment supported by coherent development partnerships. We must
work towards integrated support that addresses the unique contexts of small island
and landlocked countries, aligning our efforts with the African Union, the
Sustainable Development Goals, and climate initiatives.
To this end, I propose the establishment of a network of regional “digital
transformation use case” clearinghouse. This network will identify different
instances of digital transformation – successful, partially successful or not
successful. By documenting use cases, we can increase the success of models
adapted to local needs. The United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation
can facilitate this, providing a critical means of implementation through the SDG
Acceleration Forum, STI and embracing institutions like the ACM, IEEE and
national academies of science.
Furthermore, we need to enhance regional digital public infrastructure, particularly
in Africa. By creating investment corridors and trade opportunities that transcend
national borders, we can drive collective growth and development within a global
network of Regional Corridors. In a secure, privacy-protecting, and inclusive
digital ecosystem, data cooperatives can cross-fertilize national, regional, and
global research through common protocols for experimental scientific sandboxes.
Households, businesses, governments, communities, families, and people
everywhere can participate in and contribute to the global digital economy,
fostering economic inclusion and environmental stewardship.
Additionally, the recently announced Bretton Woods 80 initiative by the IMF and
the World Bank offers an unprecedented opportunity to rethink scientific research
and development. Just like map applications learn from the journeys of others to
provide optimal routes, global science offers the framework and methodology to
guide countries to learn from experimental sandboxes to achieve their development
objectives. Our People Centered initiative envisions a “WAZE for Prosperity”
model, where the pathways of different countries to their own goals can inform and
guide the choices of other countries, eliminating unnecessary trial and error.
Our challenge is to operationalize these ideas at scale and speed. We need
concerted, integrated efforts that create an enabling environment for sustainable
development. With my deep understanding and decades-long engagement in
professional scientific and cooperative networks, impact tracking and regional
dynamics, I am committed to driving these actions forward to innovate and support
regional ecosystems.
Finally, I urge you all to engage proactively today. Our collective insights and
proposals will shape the future of development cooperation, leveraging the
strengths of South-South and Triangular cooperation.
It is POSSIBLE to achieve SDG 1 by 2030 by Cooperating on Science and
Technology that serves all of humanity. Let’s do it.
