extend our call and windy greetings to you all this morning. I know if you are coming from the Pacific Island, this is new to you, but heard from the locals that this is the normal Wellington weather. So this is the official welcome of you Pacific Islanders to Wellington. I know we are all eager to start the new day. And on behalf of the pika shock board, we would like to thank you very much for the session yesterday. We found it that it was really successful. We had a lot of discussion. We had a lot of inspiring thoughts that are shared yesterday. And I know that the Pacific Island fellows at the peak kaisog, fellows that are in attendance will draw a lot of insight from the discussion yesterday, and we would like to thank you for your participation for today's program. If you have the program with you, we will be starting the session with technology in enhancing access to information. The moderator will be madam Swaran Ravindra, and then we'll have a break and we'll start the session on internet resilience. She will be moderating also on that session. There'll be two sessions this morning, then we'll have morning and tea break. But I think for the fellows that were staying at Travelers, you will need a lot of coffee this morning. We had an incident yesterday where we were woken up at 2am in the morning out on the freezing cold because of a fire alarm, but thankfully, thankfully, everyone is safe, but you're most welcome during the session. If you need coffee, please go and grab a coffee and keep yourself awake. And then we'll have a group session after the morning tea, and then we'll have lunch, and then we'll have the UNESCO then afternoon tea, then we'll go into the afternoon session, and there's a closing cocktail for the Pacific IGF fellows that will come after in the afternoon. But all in all, on behalf of the Pikachu board, we are very appreciative of your attendance today, and we are looking forward to the discussion that we'll be having today in the various topics and the session that is being outlined in this today's program. Just before we start and invite our moderator for the first session, I've been asked again to pray over this session. So please, can I ask if you can bow your heads with me as we seek God's guidance for this, our Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning with thanksgiving. We thank you for the good rest that you have allowed us to have last night, even though we were woken up suddenly in the morning. We thank You for Your protection that we are able to be here this morning in good health. We thank you for your love, for the grace and the mercy that you have blessed us with this morning. And we ask for your wisdom, the guidance of your Holy Spirit, to be with us as we continue our discussion this morning in the topics that have been outlined in the program, we ask for your blessings to all the fellows, our participants that have traveled far to attend this meeting, and also to our guests, our speakers that are here this morning, they they may share insights that will help us to bring a more safer Pacific Island community. We ask for your blessings, and we ask all this In Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Madam suaran, please. Applause.
I hope salah, Ashutosh, my colleagues are here who can see that this laptop is definitely
too big for this. Okay? Yandra, Vinaka, Nissan, Bula, Vinaka, malole Talofa and warm Pacific greetings to each and every one of you who are here, present today, as well as all our colleagues, all our well wishes who have joined us internationally. So that's my line, especially one Pacific greetings in a very windy, cold Wellington. So when I don't know the other Pacific greetings, we just very conveniently use warm Pacific greetings like Professor Sharma did anyway. So a warm welcome today, too. I hope you all rested. Yes, we did have a bit of an ordeal, which is why, my apologies, I was, in fact, thinking that it was the other room. I think it was lack of sleep because of yesterday's ordeal. All right, so I just wanted to, before I go on to introduce our esteemed speakers today, I just wanted to to reassure to each and every participant today, remember, this is not just mine or the speaker's forum. This is ours. This is our Pacific we all have a lot of interest, a lot of love and passion for our region, right? And we also have lots of people from outside our region who are here to support us. So if we could please contribute to this, to the session as much as we can. So even though we have some presentations today on PowerPoint, we really do not intend any debt by PowerPoint, right? We want the session to be as interactive as possible, so we will try to implement something like a Pacific style Talanoa. Okay, all right. So our
first session, Session Six A, is on
technology in enhancing access to information, which is a panel discussion. It will be supported by some PowerPoint presentations and our excuse me, our first speaker for today is a professor, Vibia Sharma, who is someone who is well known in our region and beyond. So if I may share some information about him as he makes his way up to the stage, Professor Sharma was born on November 29 1970
I'll
give you a moment to do the math. He's a statistician, so I did not write this. I just so you know, okay, and he received his masters and PhD degree in mathematics from the University of the South Pacific. He is currently a professor of applied mathematics and Head of School of Information Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Physics at USB. He also served as associate dean for learning and teaching with the ex Faculty of Science, Technology and environment and USP Since 2010 right up to 2019 he is a researcher who has led both international and Pacific based projects, and is a member of a number of professional mathematics societies and unions. Bibi has published more than 150 articles book chapters in the field of Pacific Science Education, philps of higher education, especially dealing with ICT assistive technologies. RtI work in the Pacific, robot navigation, stability, biologically inspired processes. He champions adaptive works, innovations and targeted interventions for higher education and sustainable economies. Ladies and gentlemen, with that, I'd like to, I'd Like us to to acknowledge Professor presence here. Thank
Okay, next, if you could please have a Mr. Alfred Mikey,
so Okay, of Tonga women in ICTs. I'm sorry. I think there's a bit of a mistake here. Do we have Alfred on the panel as well? Is he joining us? Does anyone know? Sorry, it's
what happens when you don't reply to my message on LinkedIn.
Okay. Thank you very much. Now, this gentleman here has a very interesting profile, and to be honest, it may go from ICT right up to medicine. So I may ask him to introduce himself when, as soon as it gets, gets a chance. And next we have Alyssa PETA moway from Sita Samoa Institute for Technology. You
thank you very much.
Thank you very much. So I will ask Alfred and Elizabeth to
please introduce themselves. If you could kindly make your
way up here. Thank you testing hilofa, and good morning to everybody.
My name is Peter mawai, and I'm from the island of Samoa, and I teach at the National University of Samoa and also a member of the IT society in Samoa. Thank you. Thank you.
Kia, ora Malalai, everyone. I'm Alfred
sokai.
I have some sort of imposter syndrome. I've I've taken a sabbatical from the tech world for a couple of years now, working in the health space, but my experience is basically in the information system, finance sector, in the public sector, over 10 years of experience in the region, it's quite an honor to be back in an ICT driven workspace. Very privileged. Yeah, that's me. Thank you.
I thank you very much. And I can assure you, there's way more to their profiles, and that
they have very humbly stated, okay, so without further ado, let's just start with the Sharma. We could have this presentation. Thank you. Applause.
I thank you. Thank you, Sharon, for the nice words,
bull everyone. Bulla,
yeah, it was
little bit of a ordeal. At two o'clock
this morning, I had to run out without any clothes. Then I ran back, had my jacket and my trousers then went out again. Terrible, right? I don't think this time around, you'd like to listen a lot from me. We had enough dosage yesterday. But this time around, I think this is a topic which is very interesting and very applicable to the people in the Pacific. And this is RTI right to information. Right to Information like any other human rights, like we have right to education, right to work, right to freedom of speech, similarly, we have right to information. While this phrase itself, and the first RTI Act came out in Sweden in 1766 for it to reach. In the Pacific, it took a long while. Just recently, the concept has been reborn, if I may say, in the Pacific, they started off from, I think, Vanuatu. They were the first one to implement the RTI Act, and then slowly permeated to the other Pacific countries. I'll basically in very short discussion on what we have done, the work which we have done in RTI in the Pacific. This is sponsored by UK aid and facilitated by UNDP. What basically they have done is they have got this anti corruption efforts. And one of the effort was to join with you, USP, in trying to create some awareness, trying to develop some tools so that there is exchange of information between the supply and the demand. So that was our main work that went in this, this particular area. Oh, this is just fancy stuff. Do not worry about that, right? I'll just get quickly to what we did. We started in 2021, and basically the first thing we did was to take RCI to the Pacific. We had gone to Tonga, to Vanuatu and to Fiji in trying to create awareness to different cohorts that could be person with disabilities, we went to women in businesses, etc, youths, and we tried to see what they basically wanted, what sort of communication channel they wanted, how they can get the information. First of all, well, they did not know what was RTI. Neither did I, by the way, when I signed up for the project, I had no idea what RTI was. I thought it's just a IT project. And I said, Okay, no problem with the UNDP. Then I found out what RTI was, and we created these sort of workshops. We had a number of trainer, my friend Swaran there is also a certified RTI trainer. We went to different places, and we tried to see, first of all, to spread the news of RTI, and secondly, to find out from people how they are accessing information. And it's very interesting, if I'm asked, if I ask you, how are you getting the information from your government websites or government portals? Do you have any difficulty? And these were the kinds of questions we were asking our people, and surprisingly, most of them were not able to access the information that communication channel was broken. Many of them didn't know where to get the information from, and if the information was available, people could not access the information, because it may be due to their lack of digital literacy, or lack of knowledge
or lack of network. Surprisingly, what works
in the Pacific is whom you know. If you go to a person, they will give you the information which you want. So we were able to gather all these problems. And also, I must also say that many people didn't want to share this information because they felt that they could be victimized. We had to tell them, this is basically trying to strengthen the link between the supply and the demand from the citizens and the public bodies in the government. And there is nothing against the government. Anything. We are trying to help out the government in making them more visible, accountable. They also have an ear on the ground to know what's happening. So those sorts of things, we try together and based on their feedback, then we try to develop a number of things. And as I would definitely encourage you, to go through this website, I'm sorry, sorry, this PowerPoint slide, and click on those links, you will find out lot of information on what we have actually developed for the Pacific from three countries. We went to five countries, and we are extending this year again to other countries. But please have a look at this, how what we have done in the work, which we did in RTI, how it made changes to people's life. So these are under stories of change. We have also created a design thinking manual. If you want to start up something, a project, a business, then this design thinking manual has all the concepts which we require from the Pacific, all the cultural practices and the ways you can be successful. We also have the RTI e course. Please go over the RTI course. It's very, very important if you want to know what's happening in the Pacific. And we also have the mobile app, which we are developing, and it should be, hopefully implemented in Vanuatu towards the end of the year, it will be hosted by the RTI section again, hopefully. So we started in 2021 and then moved around. Until now. We have gone to many places, many groups, and many success stories we have seen and witnessed.
These are our two main tools, like I was saying, the RTI Pacific
app and the RTI ecos. The QR codes are here, if you want, you can scan, download and experience what we have created, we also, like I was saying, one of the main problems which we did encounter in the Pacific throughout the communities, was our digital literacy. So although the government had made information available through different ways, people were not able to access them due to this digital literacy. So the first module of the ecos is basically on digital literacy. We have to improve that first before they are able to use these RTI tools, which we have designed for them.
So in short, this is a just a short
video talking about the different
features that are in the app.
I'm not sure why the sound is disabled. I
That's okay. In short, it has a number of features, very
important features. One of the most important features, which I would think, which is available, is you can retrieve and you can request information, some information you can't retrieve from the places, but you can request. You can place a request. It goes to the relevant authorities, and you are able to get the information which you want. And this mobile app is basically a one stop shop where all the information is available for you. You don't have to hunt around to different ministries different sections to get the information. Another fact was, when we did this survey on women entrepreneurs, we found out that more than 50% of this woman didn't have their business registered. And this information is published. Actually. It's real. I'm
not making it up.
And why, there were various reasons. One reason was they thought that the government will take away all their profits again. It shows the lack of information, lack of right information. Second reason was they could not find the information at one place. They had to hunt around bright people to get all the information. So after a while, everybody gives up. No, it's not, not, not worth it. But after experiencing these workshops, these tools, we found out many of them have listed their business formally, and they're doing quite well. Actually,
I think this is being quite important, and we all are
more or less aware of what's happening here. While we are taking these RTI tools to the Pacific, to all these different countries, there are two main problems which we face. One is the current infrastructure and the connectivity. If we have these, all these RTI tools, the nice ones, but if the connectivity is not there, the infrastructure is not okay, then these tools do not work. And secondly, the policies, we also have problems with the policies. As you know, the policies, there are no policies. I will, I will skip this. It's okay. We all know about this. Basically to look at the policies. If you look at the National ISD policies, most countries in the Pacific do not have these international, sorry, national ISD policies, and they depend on the international policies and standards. I think Fiji is just now working on their own national ICT policy. Tonga has the ICT in Education Policy, but many of the others are still working on their policies. So once these policies are there, then I think this can drive the effects of RTI better. I and thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. Next we'll have Elizabeth please,
so we will go ahead
with her Presentation,
after which we will have a panel discussion.
I Okay, good morning. Okay, you seem like a
good morning today.
So I'm
going to start off with a little activity, if I say, mini me. If I say, well, Tassie Patty, Patia, then one clap, Pat here, Pat here, if I say, lower party, then two clap, lower party. Do
you say? Okay, start from
the beginning. Me
still sleep, still sleeping. Okay.
Kia ora,
Cotto, Talofa, lava and warm greetings
to everyone. Firstly, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to our hosts and donors for organizing this significant forum and bringing us together, the participants and also the fellows together. My name is Elizabeth abawai, and I am from the National University of Samoa, and I am also a member of the IT society in Samoa, and as outlined in the program, I also need to add on professor there the intention to continue on our discussion by focusing on the role of technology, which is widely recognized As a critical tool for enhancing access to information coming from education background, and as an academic, I will concentrate on exploring the specific issues and challenges related to leveraging technology to improve access to information within Samos education sector, and I hope that our exchange of ideas will stimulate further dialog enriched by this diverse perspective of our island communities. So
okay,
so what issues?
What issues am I going
to explore here? Let's start with digital infrastructure and connectivity. In Samoa, we have some challenges. Samoa faces significant challenges with digital infrastructure, including limited broadband coverage, slow internet speed and frequent connectivity issues, especially in rural areas. These issues hinder students and educators access to online resources and digital platforms essential for our modern education in the lack of sorry in light of this, the lack of liability or reliable internet access makes educational inequalities worse, particularly for students in remote or underserved areas who are unable to participate in online learning or access digital education content
availability of digital resources and tools. This is a
concern because there is a scarcity of locally relevant digital content, educational software and online resources tailored to the Samoan curriculum and language. Additionally, the cost of devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones, can be prohibited for many families, limiting students access to essential tools for learning. This lack of resources can lead to a dependency on outdated teaching materials, reducing the effectiveness of educational delivery and hindering students ability to engage with contemporary learning method.
Teacher. Training and professional development.
Many educators in Samoa have limited training in the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning. There is a need for ongoing professional development to equip teachers with the skills to effectively integrate technology into their teaching practices. Due to this, without proper training, educators may struggle to utilize the available technology, effectively leading to under utilization of digital tools and resources, and consequently a missed opportunity to enhance learning experiences.
Digital literacy among students. Students
often have varying levels of digital literacy, with some lacking the basic skills needed to navigate online resources, use educational software or engage in remote learning. This digital divide can create disparities in learning outcome in response the existing of this gap in digital literacy that can hinder students ability to fully benefit from technology enhance education, potentially leaving some students behind in an increasingly digital world,
there is a need for education technology that respects
and incorporates one cultural values and a Samoan language, many digital resources are in English and may not be culturally relevant or easily accessible to all students. As an effect, this can lead to disengagement or difficulty in understanding, especially for younger students or those who are more comfortable learning in their native language,
the sustainability of technology initiatives
In education is often hampered by inconsistent or insufficient funding. We heard it yesterday, all throughout yesterday. You know, this affects the ability to maintain and upgrade digital infrastructure, providing necessary resources and ensuring ongoing training for educators. As a result, without sustainable funding, schools may struggle to keep up with technological advancement, leading to a widening gap between what is possible with technology and what is actually implemented in educational setting. The
development of implementation
of comprehensive national policies that support the integration of technology in education can be slow or fragmented, and there is often a need for a stronger government commitment to prioritize and fund technology enhanced education in response a lack of clear policies and supports can result in uneven adoption of technology across schools and educational institution, leaving some Students with less access to digital learning opportunities than others,
ensuring that all students, regardless of their social economic
background, have equal access to technology and information it provides, is a significant Challenge. Issues of gender, disability and geographical location can further accelerate in equities in access and in response, without targeting intervention, these disparities can contribute to a cycle of inequality where marginalized groups continue to have less access to educational opportunities and information,
a more student and educators
as they go online. There is a lot of concerns about online safety, privacy and cyber security becomes increasingly important. There is a need for education on how to navigate the digital world safely, particularly for younger students. And as a result, the impact of this is that it inadequate online safety measures can expose students to risk such as cyber bullying, inappropriate content and private breaches, potentially undermining the benefits of digital learning. Well, there you have it. There are some of the critical issues and impact related to technology in enhancing access to information.
Now let's consider the question, so what,
as people from the Pacific region, it is our opportunity in this forum, I hope to discuss and generate innovative ideas to address these challenges. Personally, I would like to seize this valuable opportunity to appeal directly to our esteemed funders or donors for support in future initiatives in Samoa so internet and SED, APNIC and UNESCO. I don't know if I miss anyone. All of you, your financial system will be greatly appreciated for several targeted initiatives.
First, it is essential to expand
broadband coverage to remote areas through collaborations with local internet services providers and government agencies, additionally investing in satellite internet solutions like the Starlink that just started introducing back home and mobile hotspots can ensure more consistent and widespread connectivity.
Donors,
we would love your support in the development and the distribution of affordability or affordable, locally relevant digital resources, such as digital textbook in the Samoan language and culturally appropriate education software. Moreover, investing in professional development programs for educators is very crucial. These programs should focus on digital literacy and integrating technology to teaching, they could include workshops, online courses and peer mentoring to equip teachers with the necessary skills to use technology effectively. Additionally, digital literacy programs for the students, particularly in underdeserved areas, it should also be integrated into the schools curriculum or offered as after school activities. Creating culturally and linguistically appropriate digital content is also very vital, establishing long term funding mechanism such as endowments or public private partnerships, is also vital to ensure the sustainability of ICT initiative, supporting policy advocacy, to prioritize technology and Education, focusing on marginalized groups and promoting online safety and cyber security are a critical component of this strategy. In conclusion, by addressing these critical areas, we can ensure that funders or donors meet both immediate needs and drive sustainable improvements in Samos educational technology landscape. This will enhance access to information, foster equity and create a more effective learning environment for all students.
So together, we have the opportunity to shape
a brighter future through technology, transforming challenges into opportunities for growth and learning. Thank you for your attention and commitment to advocating the education in Our region. Yeah. Thank you.
You guys, Sleepy Meri, Me
and access through broadband, through
cables
You know, recapping on some of the earlier discussions that the infrastructure is being put place, it can be improved. The costs are coming down. Mobile devices are more readily accessible, and it's cheaper. Information is accessible. I think the challenge is, how do we ensure that the information is trustworthy from the pandemic, really, the covid pandemic really taught us about misinformation, disinformation. I think that is the real challenge for youth and communities, and through the support of development partners and other government agencies, the focus is on the authenticity and also the trusted sources of information for our communities, our young people, those that are most vulnerable to receiving, interpreting and taking action on false information. So really, that is, that is sort of my focus, but I'm so glad to hear about AI. You know, AI is so useful, unfortunately, it has this dangers of flooding information again out there, causing more risk and needing more support for NGOs and government agencies on how to really ensure that our communities and young people are protected and sort of guided learnings is really important. I really found that useful yesterday, recapping on we are only as good as what we've learned. We need to, we need to really capture the learnings, the technical side and the cultural side. I really related to the example of that teacher in the in the communities, and her comment around the kids will be smarter than us. I think that is a voice that is in a viewpoint of the people that we serve. And no matter how far fetched or how irrelevant those comments are, they are the people that we serve, and they have the voice. And we need to actually those we need to bring in to the conversation. I think information in enhancement, and I'm Welcome to Talk to Anyone that has a view on what enhancement is. Is that in from relationships? Relationships, a colleague of mine from Samoa said, relationships is the currency of the Pacific.
Without it, we are divided. We don't we don't act as one. We cannot improve. We can't get work done in a world where things are digital that will be tested,
relationships is our currency, and that is where we need to add as an extra dimension into our work, partnering with NGOs, the voices of our communities where they face Challenges, that's where the real challenge is, sorry, team. I know there's a saying, save the best for last, but I think it's saved the best for later, not not my not my conversation, but and the Tonga women in ICT is a voice from community and young people. You know, it's about capturing their voice. It's about ensuring that they are safe, training them, training them, giving them power, empowerment, sorry, to be able to take the right information, take that to their communities, their families, they're far now, and to work together with government agencies in ensuring that the information is appropriate, safe and to do good. That's all for my speech. Thank you so much. Applause.
Thank you very much. Alfred, do we have any questions from the audience? So
if you could please kindly make your
way to the mic. So if
you could please just introduce yourself
briefly before you make
your current spider from University of Auckland.
It's really a question to you. Elizabeth, so basically, I work on connectivity in the Pacific, and I know that there's two fundamentally different problems when it comes to connectivity. And you've mentioned this is sort of one of one of your priority areas, one is the challenge of actually bringing connectivity to an island and bridging that remote distance. And the other problem, which is not really unique to the Pacific is, once that cable or that satellite link gets there, how we're going to manage the last mile. And my question to you is, I know there's a number of fiber optic cables going to Samoa, and Samoa also doesn't suffer from the problem that a lot of other Pacific island nations suffers from, in the sense that you haven't got that many islands. You've only got three, if I counted, right? You know, others have dozens. So for me, a question is, for Samoa, do you see this mostly as a lack of international connectivity that's that's there, or do you see it as a lack of last mile connectivity within Samoa
testing.
Thank you very much for the question. I know my fellow seeking be able to also contribute as they know more about the technical part with the education, that's where my focus was, is they lack the connectivity, and is there are many reasons the coverage is not out in the rural areas yet, and some of the reasons could be politicians, political. Some of the reasons could be the slow in the the aid and implementing the projects. There are some existing projects going on at the moment, but there might be slow and some of the projects have some of the AIDS, they have specific criterias in how to meet. So unless their criterias are meet, then they won't be able to offer that some aid. So there is a various reason why some of the areas in the education is not covered by internet yet. Thank you.
Thank you. Anybody else who has questions, if you could please kindly make your way up here. Ma'am.
To the mic. Feel free to line up Absolutely. Good morning, Talofa and
well this morning,
Pula, my question goes to Professor Sharma BP, it's about the RTI project. Didn't hear any challenges. I'm not sure if you mentioned some challenges during the deployment of RTI and the Pacific. So I know that different cultures as well, different setup, different platforms they used to have. Do you face any challenges of collecting the data or negotiating with the government of this country, of these islands when you try to introduce the RTI to them. Thank you Vinaka, and thank you Sarai for that question.
And I know you know the answer to that question as well. Yeah, he just wanted to know that to come out from my mouth. Yes, there are heaps of challenges. RTI is a very if I may say, political topic, there is a lot of hesitation from both ends when I talk about the supply and people really don't know how much to release, and sometimes the non sensitive information they don't really want to release. There is a big tussle between trying to find out which information is sensitive and which information is non sensitive. For us, if something is non sensitive, for example, the pay of the parliamentarians, but for the parliamentarians themselves, it would be sensitive information. They don't want that information to go out. So initially, when we started in 2021 there was a lot of hesitation, like I said, from the supply side in terms of providing information. But I think once you go and talk to the people, you talk to the parliamentarians, you talk to ministers and like, like, my friend here said that the relationships and our teamwork is the main currency of the Pacific. It's very nice to say that, because once we get into the Talon was sessions with the parliamentarians and the public bodies, you realize that they also want to release the information. They don't want to keep it. They also want to win the next election. They also want to know what's healthy people. So slowly it comes, no it comes, the information start to flow, and the people also are then happy to voice out to say, Okay, I want this information, and I want to get this information in this particular format and in this way. So I think we have, in these last three years, we have made quite a good progress in accepting and working on those challenges. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Yes, after
this, we can take one more question, then
I will go to an online participant. Yes, ma'am, go ahead tell of lover kia ora tatou, I'm really interested to
hear from the panel. And putting my hand up, Elizabeth, I am part of internet Aotearoa Council at the moment, so pretty much donor. And I know Annalisa is in the room, and she knows more about the donor session that's coming up on Wednesday and Thursday. Yeah, and anyway, my question is, I'm interested in you talked about some of the challenges the three of you in creating culturally appropriate language content and resources. And I'm wondering in your different fields, what have you found that's worked?
I'll start. I think
we use tools that are available for Pacific. It's been researched things like Talanoa, it is opening up the conversation, not predetermined, open sharing. I think that's worked. CO design partnership. I think that's very, very important for anything to succeed, more broadly, very so much in community levels, I think, and there's many other paradigms and tools depending on what community you're engaging with, I think it's important to learn that it is a sign of respect and appreciation. It's mutual appreciation. So even in the leveling field, sometimes, as technical people, that can be a little bit intimidating for the communities that we deal with, but recognizing that we're all equals and the same can go, can go a long way. Just pass on.
Kate, do I have a choice
what worked and what that didn't work? I think we kind of heard it from yesterday's presentations on the importance of getting the user's perspective in order for to cater for what will actually work. We have sort of an idea of providing an assumption with the assumption that things will be working for the same, for everybody else. And that's my my own point is to get the user's perspective first, and that will definitely hope that they will work. It will work. Thanks. Thank you very much. We have one final question from the audience, then we
will move on to a question from the online participants. Thank you. Swarm. Bula Vinaka, my name is Amanda. I'm with the Digicel Pacific. I'm probably the only operator in this room. I
think the rest in the other room.
I'd like to catch up with the gentleman that spoke earlier in terms of whether international connectivity or last mile is the issue. My question is to elicit better in terms of Samoa, if you had the ideal funding, what would be your first priority and objective to complete?
So it's quite a tough question there.
I need to go back
to my priority list and then rank from there. What will be my shopping list to give you? Is that the right intention starting from the top? Yeah, yeah. I'm not too sure at the moment, but connectivity would be one. Getting the a reliable connection would be something to consider. And if I were to give more than yes, there's more, but yes, thank you. Thank you. Better. That was also my question. Thanks Amanda for taking that up.
Okay, we have one final question again for lisipeta from Brooks kofild, with only 1500 Samoan language Wikipedia entries, what can be done to make more content available? Is this the solution to your textbook problem with only 1500 Samoan
language Wikipedia entries,
what can be done to make more content available? Is this the solution to your textbook problem?
Sorry, and I don't quite get the meeting of the question.
If there's anybody else here from Samoa, sarai
is here? I think Sarai would be able to support us in this question. I'll repeat the question with only 1500 Samoan language Wikipedia entries, what can be done to make more content available? Is this the solution to your textbook problem. I think the last part is rhetorical. Okay, thank you for that question. It's very important, yes.
At the moment, we have this national initiative with the UNDP, some more national more knowledge information initiative that we partner with the UNDP and Commonwealth of learning to develop a digital library, National Digital Library, that will be another step to increase the content of the Samoan language, of the Samoan on the Wikipedia. And also it's a lot of awareness that needs to be done in this area, because this is a new norm, thanks to the covid that they've been considered the importance of the technology. And that's where the people of I take someone as an example, take the people, take our people, you know, change the mindset that the information is now available online. So before it goes online, we need to be verified. There is a process that can go through. It's not such something that you just put it online. It has to go through the process verify it before you put it online. Same as when you do the publications, you know it has. There is a process to go through before you publish and make it available on the textbook. So awareness needs to be there. Lots of information is to put, to be put online, make it available. It has to go through a proper process, verify it properly before we put it up, so that can be accessible. And I hope that I answer that question. Thank you very much. Sarai, yes, there's a lot more conversation that can happen
around these areas. And yes, we do need the donor agencies and their kids is listening to us when you speak about this important conversation anyway, so that is all we have time for on the panel, but we can take the conversation to to coffee or through lunch, right? Thank you very much. If we can have a round of applause for our esteemed speakers,
okay, can we please now have the next
set of speakers. I'd like to call the two gentlemen here. If you could please just make your way to the stage. I
So our first speaker for today is Mr. Svetana fatula
lawyer, and he is, let me read his bio to you. He's a prominent figure in the Samoan technology landscape, recognized for his expertise in cybersecurity, digital transformation artificial intelligence and as a cyber security consultant and digital transformation consultant, swethana brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his various roles. His technical prowess is evident in his background as a programmer and systems engineer skills that have earned him a strong reputation with the Samoan ICD sector. His influence extends beyond national borders, as he is also a respected figure in the Pacific region for his contributions to the field of cyber security. He holds the position of managing partner at web safe, a cyber security firm dedicated to safeguarding digital assets. He also serves as a chief technological sorry, chief technical consultant at bite, watches Samoa and innovative AI startup sweeteners commitment to these roles highlights his his dedication to leveraging technology for progress and security in Samoa and the wider Pacific community. If we could have a round of applause for his
Thank you. Next, we have Mr. Ashutosh
ailesh Maharaj, a senior instructor in the Information Technology Department of Fiji national universities, national training and productivity, national training and Productivity Center. He holds a master's degree in Information Technology from the University of Fiji, and has accumulated extensive experience in it, education and program development. He has held key roles such as Director of Studies at the Australian Institute of business intelligence and it Development Officer at Fiji National University. His profession, expertise, spends over teaching, curriculum, development, research and consultancy in it, contributing to various contributing to various sectors within it and beyond. He also has strong analytical skills, also Microsoft. Sorry, Microsoft Certified analyst and quite a lot of other things. Okay, thank you very much. So I'd like to, once again, I'd like us to extend a warm welcome to the two gentlemen.
Okay, for me, this is continuation of some conversation, because we've also had svetana
in the last pack IGF and the one before that. Okay, so if we could maybe go to your slide first. Yes,
So gentlemen, you have seven to 10 minutes for your PowerPoint,
and then we will move on to the panel discussion. So good morning and talafa lava in Kia Ora
and thank you for I would like to thank New Zealand for inviting me, as well as the Becca GF team to present on this platform. So my name is sutenna fatwa Loya. I hold a
couple of hats.
So I'm also a
Sita member. So
this is the Samoan information, Information Technology Association. So a lot of the collaboration that happens within the domestic area, in terms of IT community support, is through Sita in Samoa. So thank you, Sita for the opportunity. So these are some of the organization I do some of the my work in by what Samoa is a AI startup. We're building a chat bot that's learning from information within Samos context, and we're piloting it on the information that we have on government websites and E commerce solutions. I also work for web safe. So web safe is a cyber security firm working in the domestic area of Samoa, as well as partnering with other Pacific countries and partners in terms of business to build cyber resilience for Samoa and Pacific, we do need a lot of help. And hence why, in 2019 a group of Pacific enthusiasts in cybersecurity. We're building a group that was invitation only, and this group is known as secback, which is cybersecurity Pacific. It is a group that's only by invitation. So we don't have any websites. We don't have any platforms that we promote our existence on. This is the first time we've come out of the woodworks, and to show that we are here, that there is specific talent that are working in the background. So we work on a concept that we like to call in the Pacific coconut wireless, right? So if you know a coconut wireless is is person to person, as in routing, it's peering on the technology level. So you only know us when you find us, and you only connect when we recommend you. So we would like to introduce setback to the floor, and also introduce it back to the Pacific IGF. And we're here to help. We're here to do what you do and share common grounds in terms of how we can collaborate. So why is the internet important to us? Why resilient? Why is it? Why does it matter? Many years ago, internet to the Pacific was a luxury, but now it's no longer a luxury. It's a necessity. It's part of our lives. We live by it. Without it, we have no access to information. Where do we go to in terms of hospital here or pharmaceutical products. How do we know what products are good for us? Where do we find those products? The internet has given the Pacific the door to find knowledge, find access, look for things that couldn't be found locally, and ask for it on the internet. So it's becoming part of our lives, and because it's becoming part of our lives, it becomes a tool for those threat actors out there to try to leverage on our on our vulnerabilities. So we see a lot of things that are coming to us in terms of misinformation, disinformation. You've seen a lot of those during covid, seen a lot of those during a lot of the mass media, propaganda that's out there. Social media is changing rapidly. We've also heard about AI. We've also heard about all these new tools that are coming to the Pacific. Because because we have internet, we become that target, and we will become victims of them if we don't prepare, if we don't plan. Yesterday, I heard a lot about, why were some things failing? Why were something successful? It's because we didn't have the information. We couldn't plan because we didn't have the knowledge to plan. So I think in this new era, we have internet, we have access to plan. We have access to resources and information. Proves that we couldn't have access many years ago. So the Pacific is totally a different Pacific that you saw many years ago. So how, how does internet resilient and cybersecurity come together? Cybersecurity is about protection. It's about defense. It's about mitigating the factors that bring forth threats. It's about finding out what is out there, and how do you prevent them before something happens. Usually in cybersecurity, we always call out the five nines, nine, nine, 9.999% that it can be secured. The other 1% you only need one incident to break a system, while protectors, blue teams and cybersecurity analysts find the holes and try to block them, they're blocking 1000s and 1000s and even millions of things one day in a day. But it only takes one hole to actually penetrate any system, and no one is immune to this, because systems are designed by humans, built by humans, and hopefully, if we can remove the humans, we remove the vulnerability, right? But we can't humans continue to produce, continue to grow Dominions on the earth and continue to flourish as we were created to be to manage and to look after the resources. Internet resilience is really about availability. And if you're in cyber security, you hear about the CIA triad, confidentiality, integrity and availability. So internet resilience is the last two availability and integrity. If your cash power goes off, if your power goes off, maybe the connections that you need that powerful won't be available. So for cybersecurity, we need to defend, for Internet resilience, it needs to be available. So these are the pillars that bring these two together. We do need to share the responsibility as specific nation, we are very little. But if we work together, if we help one another, this relationship in terms of building a stronger and better internet, in terms of resilience, becomes more adherent to what we do every day, sharing our responsibility in terms of investment. We've heard about we need funding for about how do we collaborate? How do we share the weight? How do we find common ground to bring together different resources from different expertise from different areas in the Pacific, whether it be technical, non technical, policy wise, legal wise, and so forth, right? Looking at Academia, how do we prepare for the future planning for the academic roadmaps? These are some of the questions that we still trying to look for answers for today, we will get there. We just need to be together. It only takes one threat to break every other thing that you have. Most times, we protect the front doors, but we never protect the windows. We never look at where the loopholes that things can come through on so looking at the Pacific, these are some of the common threats that we see, phishing. There are many forms of phishing. There's smishing, SMS phishing. There is vishing, voice solicitation via your phones. I think everyone in the Pacific has a little bit of experience in terms of this. Someone calling you from somewhere, I say, where Microsoft Do you have a problem with your license? Would you like a license? We can give you a free version, but what they're really installing? Is it Microsoft, or is it a back door or is it a crypto bot? Are they using your resources without you knowing? So these are some of the ways that fishing have been hitting our Pacific islands malware. Malware is permanent in the Pacific because we don't buy antiviruses when you buy your laptops, other companies that have these laptops or this technology also providing security products that protect you. Are you asking, Can you install antivirus? Are there policies in your governments to say that antivirus need to be procured as an accessory to the technology that you have ransomware.
I think ransomware is one of the dangerous
elements out there. Pacifics can't handle ransomware, because usually when ransomware happens, it's a whole, whole reloading of a system. Sometimes we question where the backups are. Sometimes if we do have backups, we're lucky, but if we don't, basically we're sitting ducks, and maybe history and data has lost. In terms of those things, the fundamentals. We're still looking for ways to provide sustainable power in the Pacific, we still suffer from remote power outages. We also suffer from availability of power sources. Some families run off generators. Still power hasn't been getting to them, and that becomes a problem in terms of communication as well. Unstable internet. We've heard from many people that in the Pacific we don't have stable internet because the connections that need to go out to the rural area and the remote public is not there. And now, hence why we're looking for solutions in satellite the cost of security protection software. We can't afford security protection software because most of them are quite expensive for the Pacific. How do we deal with marginalized groups like us? Because cost of antiviruses are quite high. Most average families don't afford them, and then the cost of infrastructure. Most times when we look at infrastructure, we're only looking at the communication towers. But how did that communication tower get there? You needed to train engineers in road train engineers in finding ways to get those roads into those location and then buying the lands and those roads and and those deployment need to go on. Those are some of the problems and challenges that communication has is, how do we buy those and together provide influence for internet and infrastructure so on a personal note, I think
if you look at this picture,
our ancestors knew how to provide resilience. This is a double canoe, and if you looked at the vast ocean we had, you don't want to be in that ocean once it's once it's got swells. So they built double canoes to counter that kind of situation. So is in our blood for for resilience. You have double sales once they will go down. You can run but not so long. So in cyber security, these are some of the important things that we're preaching. Strong passwords. I think passwords is a human problem, because strong passwords account for memory. We need to memorize long strings of characters, and that becomes a problem. And so two factor authentication is a next solution, but that is also another problem, because you need to carry a device with you. So if you have only one device. If you lose that device, your whole digital life has been protected by that one key is now lost and you need to buy another one, re authenticate. And the RE authentication process takes time software updates, lack of lack of proper software consensus and software pricing. We don't have the time to update internet. The cost of internet also becomes a problem. You want to use the internet to do your work, but you have a vulnerable software that you need to update that costs money. Safe browsing habits, most of us don't practice safe browsing habits because there are features like incognito mode inside your browsers. But who uses them? Only the techies does. Only the geeks, only those who are very paranoid that maybe their governments, maybe their companies, maybe their partners, are looking at something that they don't want them to look at. The redundancy power supplies have auto dose, and if you're running from field power, if that field becomes high in costs you want, you'll be you will have a problem in terms of trying to get that power to run properly. Then Secretary, secondary internet links, most of us, we are happy with submarine cables, but we want more. We want reliability. We want accessibility. We want to have internet everywhere we go, so we're looking at satellites. So how can we work together? Indo, Pacific has always been about strengthening numbers. We are communal people. We do things together. If you go to any island in the Pacific, you'll find that we have no fences in the remote areas. This because communal factors. We share things. For example, one day you don't have salt, you go to your neighbor, can I have some salt? Cyber Security doesn't encourage sharing, and that's a problem, because it's within our culture to share, but now we need to. We need to restructure how we think. Are we sharing to the trusted people? Are we sharing to a network where, if we give you something that you're not compromise ourselves encouraging the community elements right in terms of our awareness programs, our people want to learn, but they don't know where to go because of lack of awareness programs. We need more awareness programs, and because we need more, we need support, and we need people who can fund those support, one of the things that I believe can work in the Pacific is establishing community digital hubs. This is where they can learn. This is where they can find out information. This is where information can be distributed, and this is where they can revive lifelong learning, just like what some of the university in the Pacific are moving towards. It's not just about knowing that information. It's about constantly finding out what's new. The importance of school businesses and organizations within the community, they can do a lot more, like every SIM card that you sell. Do you put security notices on every phone that you give out? Are there procedures that you tell them how to install things that give them protection. The school that you go to do you provide programs or trainings that assist in terms of cyber security and so forth, and then building a safe and secure atmosphere? Sometimes security can shun people. Sometimes, in the Pacific, it's one of the cultural things that if you don't know a lot, you don't tend to raise questions, you don't tend to voice your opinion, because you might be shunned back. Why don't you not know? Why haven't you learned? So these are some of the things that we need to break. We need to allow people to share their opinions, to share their voices, to show what they don't know, to show to make mistakes and fix those mistakes, and this is where we come with an atmosphere of safety. It's okay to have problems, but let's learn from our problems.
So how do we do it? What can we do? We need to work together,
starting from governments, the government do to help the communities? What can the community do to assist the Government? In terms of perspective, then looking at other organizations, like non for profit organization, online forums, offline forums, community forums, and then different community groups that we can look at the initiative in terms of working both public and private, and the collaboration of those two elements, and they need to make the voice of the Pacific people heard. Usually in our trainings, we ask our participants to give their voice. So we customize the training towards what their needs are, what their what they want to know what they need to know. So then, my apologies. We just have 30 seconds to round up, please. So
last, last comment.
So we're using AI as well in terms of delivering training. This is small bike training. So we're using a platform called dev safe security. So this is a it's powered by AI. And then these are some of the smart strategies that we should do, educate our users, implement risk management, redundancy and failover strategies, regular updates and patches, both on the human level and on the systems level, incident response planning, promoting cultural and security and the collaboration of information sharing across the region. Then call for action. We need to be secure. We need to be smart about our security. We need to work together and and then the last question is, who is accountable for the resilience of the internet? Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
So we can continue with that conversation. Of course, lots of interesting things now.
Over to yoshitosh, good morning. Sorry,
I'll be as
fast as I can. Okay. So basically, I'm, well, we're
getting these slides on. My presentation is
on effective business continuity planning and the role of ICT and DRP. So business continuity, as we know, was okay. BCP. I think it was one of the fancy words that came into light when we had covid, okay, specifically in Fiji, most of the organizations, they were running around and trying to say, Okay, we need to get a BCP plan. A BCP plan. Okay. Most of them, they did not even know what a BCP? BCP was, okay, this business continuity plan, which organization needs to have their businesses going in terms if there's a disaster, okay, or is a pandemic. And I think thanks to covid, most of the organizations, they were able to create a BCP, okay? And in, in the Pacific Islands, it's, it's a must. We need to have a BCP. We need to have a DRP. Okay, from my understanding, we we need first, we need to get a BCP plan done properly, and from there we can have a good disaster recovery plan. Okay, some of the components of BCP, we have risk assessment. I believe I may not elaborate much on this. Okay, we all knowledgeable on what strategies we need to apply, what risk assessments we need to do, Pacific islands, we are more affected by climate change. So when we are creating our DRP plan, our BCP, all these things should be tailored into, okay, what the risk is? How much cyclones are we getting? Where we need to set up our server rooms? Okay, it should be in the first floor, the ground floor, on top, right. Um, these are the things that we need to plan through your business, impact analysis, your strategy, development, planning and implementation, okay. Testing is very, very vital. Okay, I think a good example I would take is the Tonga, the volcano eruption that happened, right? They were like, cut off from the world and most of the Pacific island nations. We are just connected through a cable under the sea. Okay? So, yeah. So, as we can see, it is very critical to have these things, okay? It enables communication. No communications. You are cut. Okay? They you there's there's nothing you can do, okay? The other thing that we keep on telling okay is data backup, in terms of if something happens, you are able to how quick you're able to get to your backup, how quick you're able to get your backups, get your systems running. Okay, and it's very good to do these tests. Okay, just this morning. I don't know if we had this 2am fire drill, or was it really fire? But these things are important, okay, so that we know if there is a covid 3.0 coming up, how are we going to do things? Right? So some of the strategies you can implement
is your data backup and
redundancy, okay, I think most of the organizations, they keep on doing it. It's, it's a plan they have, okay, clouds build solutions. I'm very much impressed. I think in in the Pacific Islands, we're more Washington to the cloud. Okay, it's a very good thing. The in the other thing is cyber security, protecting IT systems, and ensuring that you have a Okay, so case study, and that wanted to do is, if you knew, Okay, I'm just taking from my organizations what we did, okay, so we do have this BCP plan in place. This was, I think, developed just after covid happened, where we needed to do a lot of online teaching. Okay? How communications would happen, how we are going to communicate with students, how the staff are going to communicate with each other. Okay, so we did have a nice and beautiful plan in place that we are using now. So if something happens tomorrow. The university is ready for that. And I would like to thank Sala, my colleague, for making this slide for me. Challenges again, yeah, the we have resource limitations, okay, integrated training, the organizational resistance, where they do not want to adapt these things, especially the higher the executives, okay. Firstly, the, I think the major problem here is that we create a plan and it goes to a non IT person to approve or disapprove, so and then look at figures, okay, okay, I can save this much money here, it's okay, but when there is something goes wrong, okay? In terms of just saving that 1 million, you lose a lot. Okay, so that's, that's one of the things that's a major challenge, I believe, for for for us, right? So, yeah, so I think that that's, that's the end of my presentation. Not to keep it quite simple for Fiji, I would say I'm I think most of Google things, they have started to happen. So across we were mostly reliant on the Southern Cross cable. Now we think Google is coming up with a cable we're coming up with the Google, Google data center in Fiji, they've announced so hopefully we are as a nation, we are trying to get more ready to disaster. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Does anybody have a question? Please to the mic,
and as the first
you know audience is making his way, I would like to extend a warmest Vinaka vakalebut to Jim Tora for being one of the first speakers on DRP at the National Conference on it, and he was one of the pioneer speakers for us. Thank you. Thank you. Swaran bolvanaka, gentlemen.
Jim Torah from that's it. My question is more for both of you, and I guess if you in the audience who've been at these forums for many years, and also with the speakers prior to you, one of the challenges we have in the Pacific is influencing leaders or those that are that make key decision makers. And we've been down this road before where we have so many tech meta experts in the industry, in it cyber security and with the I guess, post covid and the brain drain, how can we, as subjective experts in your areas and to presentation work together, reinforce our community to ensure that some of these key areas of concern is addressed with the right people. In Fiji, I can say, for example, we do not have the right subject matter people making decisions around technology, around cybersecurity, we've had breaches. Best practice, good governance. So how can we work together to ensure that when we're coming to these forums, you know, next year or another forum next month, that some of the outtakes we have in these presentations actually moves up to someone that will actually make take some action. And I've been coming to these forums. And, you know, we can only do so much, but we see all the stuff I've been posting online and pushing those buttons, trying to have meetings with ministry members. And it's come to the stage now where I'm now, here in New Zealand, working with some work with the New Zealand government. So I guess I'm putting it to you both and the floors, what can we do as next steps for the next IGF to make some concrete impact? Thank you. Sorry for the long statement. Thank you, Jim. I think this is a great question.
First,
I think we need more awareness for the community the people. If we can get people to understand the concern of cyber security, the concern of cyber safety for online uses, they can be the voice to their constituencies, and from there, if they understand that online security is actually the same as the physical security that they have at home, the doors, the locks, the security system that they have, they can voice their concern to their politicians. And then the other thing is working with the media to manage the narrative, because one of the things that we still see in the Pacific is the fear of reporting. We need to design policy and standards that encourage safe reporting that you are not criticized when you speak out of an incident that happened in your office, in your in your community or in your organization, and then from regional partners, we need to also encourage the vocalization of cybersecurity. I was quite happy to see that one of the topics in the Pacific forums was cyber security. It is a concern. It is a ticking bomb for our leaders. Sometimes our leaders usually say that it's not our problem. Let that next generation have that problem, but it is a problem now we need to address that, because it is our kids who face those problems, and if they're not well, if we don't prepare them, basically we haven't done our jobs as good citizens. And we need to encourage the donor partners to see that we are more vulnerable than we then they see us, and because our leaders are not well informed. We need to inform them and then structures in which partnerships are built around building cybersecurity heroes and digital heroes. And that leadership role is very important, because we need to. We need digital heroes that can drive it, and that comes from the top. We can do our work at the bottom, but if our voices are never considered, and that's where the heroes need to consider those voices, I think my colleague will add on to that notion. Yeah, thank you.
I think what?
Thank you, Jim for that question. I think what we as a university has tried to, we have start, started to doing, is we've started giving free awareness courses where students can just join in and start getting that awareness program. And I think with the, I think the jaishri is there, we have also started working with the Online Safety Commission and providing trainings, okay, the I know the challenge is there. I mean, we work with the industries so much that the higher people, they do not want to invest much on it, but they rely on it. The truth is that it has the biggest budget. So why should I be giving money? Right? But that is the change that we need to put again, for the CEOs, for the decision makers, that okay, if you are relying you need to invest. And the some of them, they don't want to even budge. We have experiences where senior, senior leaders, okay? I mean, if they have made their mind then, I mean, it's very much, very difficult to change, change for them, because they're just looking at the profit side of things. So yeah, Fiji, I think there's still lots to be done in that, and I'm changing the mindset, especially specifically the policy makers in the organization. Thank you. Thank you. Sudosh, let's move on
to the next question.
Just a question on
you have touched a little bit on the way of life, the culture and how it affects cyber security from yesterday, I think the first panelists yesterday, they were asking, what is transformation? What is the definition of transformation? While looking ahead, trying to enhance and build cyber security in the Pacific, and especially in AI. Can the Pacific preserve, and you rightly mentioned that we are known to be a very trusting people. We share, we care about each other, rather than for security. Can cyber security be in such a way that we can still maintain that cultural identity in the Pacific, other than changing it to fit the technology? I
so in terms of the cultural changes and the norms that are transitioning into the ones,
I think culture will only exist when the
people are there. So to sustain our cultural values, I think technology and the internet can amplify our voices with the existence of the resources that are out there to sustain our traditional ways of living. It is by choice that we change. So we need to also encourage traditional values with the use of technology. And I think there are pros and cons, there are there are the bad and then there are the ugly when we consider technology with culture. But as for the Pacific, we have So while many pandemics, we've survived a lot of different incidents in our existence, but we are very resilient people. We grow out of them. Covid has surely shown that we were the first to actually respond in terms of shining our borders and protecting our people, and we will do it again in terms of the digital elements that we have. We are very adaptive, and I think we just need to be who we are, and that existence will also exist online platforms that we have
Yes, just follow up on that
this. This question is open to anyone that can answer. Can we while working towards enhancing technology through AI or cyber security in what development that we are planning? Can we make sure that we preserve our Pacific island culture and not change it a lot, so that we put it in a risk of losing our culture for the purpose of technology development. Can we make sure that, are we able?
Are we able to
in? Yeah, I think, from our perspective, from my perspective, yes, we
can Okay. Because the problem with, I think, the Pacific side is we, we are not digitally educating our citizens, okay, and the line has to be there that, okay, we need to preserve our culture. There's one. And the other perspective is that cybersecurity has a serious threat to to the economy. Okay? So, I mean, that is what we need to do, more awareness, and we need to, I mean, separate that. I mean, for me, like sharing passwords, okay? I mean, in the House, everybody would be knowing your password, like in in the Pacific community, right? But we need to tell them, Okay. I mean, that's, that's, I mean, awareness is something that we need to, I mean, enhance more, more on that. So to preserve that, I
if I may, just to add a little bit of perspective to
what Savi has said about our culture indigenous knowledge. If we look at the cultural if we look at the current practices on climate change and what efforts we are having, we are making sure that we adding this element of indigenous knowledge into solving issues related to the climate change. When we look at the resilience, we look at the mitigating factors, we are ensuring that all the practices which our four parents had, we're trying to use them. And whether we talk about the Jain from taro we looking at how we are preserving the mangroves all in the olden days. I think these things will work, will continue to work, provided we are able to use them into our new IC packages. So I felt that one way we are preserving and actually highlighting the knowledge from the Pacific, that was one. But going back to what Torah was saying, I felt that this is something quite important, which I believe this particular society and organization can take it up to, especially the Pacific Island leaders, when we say that we want to solve the issue of digital literacy, digital divide. We want to try to make sure that everybody knows about cyber security. We have new programs, and I was discussing with the Tongan Vice Chancellor for the Tongan National University as well. We are actually investing in the same solutions, and basically we are duplicating and replicating our efforts. Ashutosh was saying that we have got a certain OER in let's say digital literacy. USB is doing the same. Tongan university is doing the same. So we are actually not diversifying. We are just using the same money for the same solution, and I felt, if we are able to work together, then we will not actually rely on so much handout, no funds from here and there again, I was talking to Andrew, and I said, there's lots of calls proposals for funding. Let's have a new youth wing that can look into this sort of funding. Let's talk to our university so that they can combine and not have the same degree programs. So this is just something to say, sorry.
Thank you. Thank
you, Professor. I think what I just want to add like I think
we should not be working as Fiji Samoa or Solomon's, okay? We should be working as Pacific. That is what we need to work on, because Pacific, the major challenge that we have is connectivity. I think Starlink is coming up, but still it will. Connectivity is one. Next is we have digital literacy. Without that, we can't have digital transformation. So it's a long way through. I mean, some of the villages, they don't even have electricity yet. Forget about getting internet right. So yeah, I think we, as Pacific, which need to start working together and not working in silos. Thank you.
Thank you. One final one, please. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for this very interesting
presentation that we had. I think I just wanted to add that I think some of us here represent governments, and I think initiatives like this, we need the support of the governments in the Pacific. And think it needs to go as far as the Pacific Island forum, if that can be, if some of us here, you know, in this roles, where we can connect there, then I think it is important to take these discussions further. Thank you.
Go ahead. Please. Good morning.
My question is for and I'm from blue way wireless. We deploy currently Pacific. Oh, and I'm from Samoa. We deploy currently Pacific satellite dishes to the rural, remote areas of Samoa to provide connectivity. And now we have also deployed Starlink just recently within the past month. So my question is, for so 10 since we've now made it possible to have this resource in the rural areas of Samoa, we've gone ahead and provided digital like computers for the people in the community. My question to you is, are you currently working with a group in Samoa or any of the ministries there to bring about this awareness in the fringes of the community, especially in rural, unserved, underserved areas, because now a resource is available. So are you providing Cybersecurity Awareness, or can you in your capacity? Yeah, so there are a couple of projects that
we have safe is conducting. One of them is called Smart Island. And in smart Island, we're encouraging digital transformation. Smart Island is to provide services to remote locations that have trouble accessing services that are on the main islands, so facilitating things like digital payments using online platforms as well as the connectivity elements. So there are many parts that are in play. First, you're looking at connectivity itself. That's the primary focus, because you cannot have you cannot have the apps without the infrastructures. So usually when we look at an app, we think it's a simple square, but that software, there's a whole infrastructure behind it. And when you're looking at what the infrastructure needs, you're looking at redundancy, for tolerance, quality of services, but you're only seeing the interface, the UI that you have. So we're working with communities in a smart Island space. We're also doing work in terms of digital villages. How do we get the villages to provide their products on online platforms like social media? How do you build social media pages that produce your product? How do you market that product so that you can only get maybe five seconds of someone's viewing, and what information can you elaborate in terms of that five seconds Tiktok and all these other short videos that we have marketing needs to be taught to the villages in terms of how, how much skills do you need to produce, and what information do you need to have because you only have a limited time. So these are some of the things that at web safe, we're trying to work with. We've also worked with the government in terms of areas such as data governance, and like the previous comments from my colleague here, we need to work together in data governance, because we need to break down the data silos that are within organizations or departments of government or even the private sector. How do we manage that whole sea of data? Then work together in terms of non duplication, because we are duplicating every sector is duplicating systems, duplicating storage, and we need to find ways to economically bring those elements together for a more shared approach, a more financially feasible approach in terms of limited resources. So I think that's what we're trying to deliver. The context of Samoa, recently, we've been hired by one of by the collaboration between the Samoan government and the New Zealand government to educate the business community on cyber safe. So then my apologies again. We will, I think that will be, have to be it for
today. Of course, there's wonderful conversations, gentlemen, you might want to ask that question later. Sorry about that. We I believe we also have a question online, but I would like to strongly urge you to take that conversation over to coffee or better still, around the car above. Okay, so we have been told that morning tea is almost over, so we just like to make some final comments. Thank you very much. A wonderful audience. And before we finish off this conversation. Remember, we can have all the talk fest we like, but what we need to finish off today, what we need to leave with is affirmative action. So if this also means that we've got lots of down agencies, lots of good conversations happening, the fact that we went beyond time means a lot is actually happening, right? So it's time that we bring all these initiatives, perhaps under to the RTI app. If Professor Sharma could also pledge his support in this now, at this point in time, so we could get all the initiatives under the RTI app, so that we have one portal where all the initiatives are listed, and you have a pool of people to assist each other. We have said that we still need to firmly believe in the spirit of multi stakeholderism, and we need to really stop the chronic problem of working in silos with that a big winner for being such an audience, such as such an awesome audience. Thank you to our speakers and our participants online. Morning tea served and almost
over. So let's go get it. You
section.
group three, digital inclusion, capacity building will lead by mr tangi ting
t
toga, yeah, she's at the back climate resilience and disaster management, lead by andrew toy moana, use
your hand. that's andrew for group four,
policy and regulatory frame frameworks that is GIF at the back. Ai, innovation, entrepreneurship, or dr.
234,
team, Don't distract the counting. 434556,
6123456,
Amanda reso, 4562,
melee, mele,
three, four, obit,
five, six, okay, so now
you know your groups.
So now you know your groups are. So you have to look for your team leaders, and they get to there before we go, we break into groups. The if you look at any page two, please. Oh, okay,
this is a general question
with this topics
so say, for example, digital infrastructure development, you look at the challenges, the opportunities, and what is from now, if we learned our lessons and what is from now. So you can discuss among your groups, and then you select one person to come up and present, or you can all come up and present what you've been come up. This isn't one hour session discussion. And then we give a 30 minutes for our to come back and report on what you've been discussed. We have online participation. So we give them group question six, please, Anthony, if you can type to them discuss the question six, AI innovation and entrepreneurship. And if they have any comments, then they need to be Dr Sharma for their comment. So any questions from the audience, otherwise, then we can break into groups. Now, six groups,
each row, 123456,
groups, and then we start
discussions all the absolutely amazing people in group two, so group two, five,
give at the back, four, Andrew at the back.
Who's here? Six,
six. Dr Sharma in the front.
Group, group one here with Sava i
So one,
number three with Kanye.
So
come from one to 212,
okay, You can
buy group,
five whiskey, Yes, Jesus.
Hey, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Spirit.
Okay, I so let's
start with some of The
so they can hear you online and
then joining onto a chat session so
online any questions or anything I can pop them into the Zoom. So this is just one way communication, or they are able to
communicate as well. Okay, okay, who's
there? We have people joined at the moment.
Okay, I I hope you are able to hear me.
So this is a one way communication, but
we are like 10 of us here in this particular
group, and we all have introduced ourselves. We all
from we have a common interest, and that is AI. So now we are starting to open up the flow to see how we can use AI in this what are the benefits and what challenges which we will face, and what sort of solutions we may be able to propose. So we are opening up. How shall we do this? How should we go to each member? Or we should just by a raise of hand, try to communicate, yeah, because people will have different things to say, yeah. So maybe we could start off by saying, what are the potentials of AI in the Pacific? What can we benefit from which particular sections or sectors may be beneficial or may be benefiting the most? Yeah? So yeah, we'll have to speak to them so that people would Yeah, those who are joining I so
different people will say things.
If you have
to add more things, then maybe we can wait for the
chat facility to open up. So what do you think will happen? How do you think we will progress? I know all the universities, like we were discussing, all the institutions, will now get into new programs of AI, new training sessions, going to the governments and having these programs, people will be equipped with some knowledge of AI. Is some knowledge good enough? I from my side, I think you would need to find the issue first. The problem is there any any issues at all where
we can actually use or utilize AI to address them, from the health sector or
the Ministry of Health, from Tonga, and I'm pretty sure I can speak on behalf of the Pacific as well. In the healthcare sector. In our context, limited resources, funding, skill sets in certain areas. For instance, we only have in Tonga, one radiologist, one pathologist. Our data analytics team is actually quite, quite small. So these are these areas that I would like to actually explore, AI to actually support these areas. So rather than having just one pathologist or radiologist, we can actually utilize AI to actually give some initial diagnosis. Of course, we validation should be a human factor that should come in there, and also that that data analytics. So we're collecting a lot of data within the health sector, and we don't have the capacity to analyze those data. So in turn, for the decision maker to actually, because certain analysis to have better decision making. So these are the areas we actually would like to actually explore, what sort of how can we integrate AI into these existing systems, or we can actually use other form of technology, apps and whatnot, to actually support these, these initiatives. Thank you. That's nicely said. Actually, that's something which I also had in my mind when I spoke yesterday, looking at the next version of telemedicine. We
talk about telemedicine, but it's no longer this,
this tele appointments. Now we should have a first responder built into those service like first level of diagnosis and also level of treatment, although we have to make sure that our people are are okay to see the remediation given to them online, they have to accept that no so I think that's a good, good area to talk about, and I hope you'll be able to say that in front as well. We will talk about that little bit more. But just to build on that, telemedicine, it can be beneficial in number of ways. It could be also opportunities of entrepreneurship for people to take that up. I was talking to one of our lecturers in USP, and he said, For the remediation, for the first level of treatment, it doesn't have to be only patent recognition from Ai. It can also be crowdsourcing, so that particular image can be sent to, for example, 100 of doctors who are online, and they will give their treatment. And based on that, the AI will find out the best treatment from there or the most common one, and that could be the first level of treatment. So there is option of entrepreneurship. There's option of variation in the tools as well, which is quite, quite good. The challenge is one of the challenge would be, for example, having our people accept the remediation, which is online, because normally we don't like it, no, normally we want, we want face to face, diagnosis and treatment. Anybody would like to add more to that. I think it's important that we could, we could present this as one of the main things in AI collaboration,
absolutely known for our group work.
Yeah, I don't have much to add to
the health sector, because I think you've
covered it, but for me, another plus for AI, it's very new to
Samoa as it is. I think our people will take some time and for them to incorporate it into their lives. And AI is but from a a climate and a terms of redundancy, and in terms of catastrophes, or it would be good to prepare our people, you know, and what to do, measures to take when, when, when the cyclone hits, or something like that, what they can do for their families to prepare them. I think that's something that AI can Can, can ready them and prepare them for in terms of climate change or the weathering or catastrophes, natural catastrophes, also from an ISP perspective, how implement contingency plans for redundancy and providing connectivity to hospitals and so on and so forth. That's something that maybe AI can provide some insight into, but it's clearly very new to our people. We're very hands on, and like you said, we're face to face so but that is something that it would be good to discuss. Yeah, Nora, and I think you can also build on that idea. And maybe we can, after our discussion, we can also present that idea, because I think this is going
into the climate resilience
and getting things, and that's quite important, because this early warning systems have to be real time, and one way it can be real time is through the influence of AI. The challenge would be to get the sort of data so that they are able to predict properly otherwise. You know, sometimes I recall one of the Fiji radios. They said the the cyclone is coming around four, 4pm and we were out drinking beer 2pm near the pool. It was still really blowing very hard. We said no, so it's coming at four o'clock. And by quarter to four, we went to our rooms. It was so quiet, so they could not predict properly. AI will also depend on the data it needs so big data, then only it can make the prediction. So that could be a good challenge. You know, in trying to have this real data so that they can make the decision right on the spot. Thank you. So we have two different cases. Thank you. Maybe I can add to the network resiliency. So I come from the tier two ISP, so as a network engineer, I'm already resorting to using AI because
we have, like, a human resource issue as well. That's not so many of us in the network team. So I'm already resorting to AI to, like, programming some scripts and then running it because I'm working like late in the night to facilitate any upgraded changes. So I could just scrape it out and then leave it and put the timer on, and then it automatically updates everything that I needed to do. So I'm already using AI. Also we have a lot of redundancy in the network, so which one takes preference, and all this AI is actually helping with that. If there's any disaster, the failover happens, so I don't have to be there to do it. So yeah,
yeah, yes, the challenge that I face is like the accurate data that I put in. So yeah,
data entry is very paramount and best. Thank you.
It's another good example of what is possible in AI, in our region, and of course, that can be extended throughout the world. Yeah, thank you. Let's
see the others. You can also talk about
this the trainee network security past couple of days, and
I noticed, probably I'll just
take it from Thomas
linking into data analytics, trying to actually in terms of networking traffic and all of that, that's a lot of data that's actually happening real time. So to have some sort of person or team that actually looks after, constantly look after or analyze these packets or whatever. We don't have the capacity, so maybe we can actually have some sort of AI that can actually does that analysis, and then that feedback to that team. So probably save up a lot of time and resources as well funding to actually build bigger teams actually monitor these, these traffics, so that just two cents from for training? No, I think that's very important, because that is one of the main attributes of AI, to have data and to be able to use that data into patterns and predictions, but not only predictions
prescriptions, what should happen. I think that's quite important.
Our Solomon. Lady
Maureen, you have to say something
in any particular sector. How
do you see AI, we,
I think for us, back in the Solomons, like we're not really,
I mean, used
to AI yet.
I mean, yes, slowly, it's been introduced. But
yes, we're not really familiar with how it can be able to help, but, yeah, I think in terms of because nowadays, for us, everything is done manually, like you have to line up in the ministries, and it takes a
long time and stuff like that. But if
AI is introduced, I think it will help to make people's lives more easier, and in terms of data collection, instead of waiting a long time to get answers and stuff like that. Yeah, I think it will be much more easier. I think that's now. Thank you. No, Maureen, that was well said, because now you've looked at the challenges from a different perspective without AI, there are challenges because of the long waiting time, or because people don't know how to carry out this data analytics,
etc. So AI will help them. No. So that's a good one. That's another perspective. We have HR AI assignment, you know, tick. So we currently are working together with code Avengers, Avengers blue. This is working with
code Avengers on providing coding training to early child development
ages, I believe, eight to 14, and we've collected quite a significant amount of data on the challenges that that the students within the coding program that we offer, and what they're receptive to, how they take in, how quickly they learn the you know, what they've been taught. So I guess that could be something that that we can use AI can be used for how we can identify how students can react to it, who can sell, who can't. From an educational standpoint, I think we can take further in terms of programming as well. So that's there, you know, because, like I said, we have collected a lot of data, so that could be something we can use AI for on on a trait specific type of education to our young generation, and how well they they learn in that capacity. I think that's very well said, because this is going to those days we're talking about adaptive learning, personalized learning, and also trying to include
AI so that they are actually our agents to help out. Now we're doing something, they can stop us, they can give us some more lessons, and they can help us know to go to the next level. So more to do with the agentic. Ai getting into the agentic. AI Sauron, you'd like to say something,
social communications, getting Sonia and
the SAM already touched on it.
But for me,
I see AI very useful in the call center. Yeah, it's a first responder, like we have the data, like we still have people calling. Oh, how do you put your data? How do you subscribe to the plan? So I think it's very useful in that perspective, we have all the data, so we don't have to have people answering the phone telling them the How to steps. It's already there. So if the data is there, there will be much less job for the people at the call center. So if that, if the customer's problem is not sold, the AI information, then they can, there's a button there to actually talk to a human being, and then or direct them, oh, we need to to talk to the internet, to the ISP department. And then there's the AI will help just direct them through to the to the ISP department. You know what? I mean? Yeah, yeah. So I think that's a that's where AI will come into handy with telecommunications. Thank you, and I believe you will discuss that point later on, yeah, because that's a very important point, and it basically looks
into the first level of AI.
The traditional AI will rule in the frequently asked questions and the answers, and they will just respond to that. There is no learning, and that's fine, because most of our work can be done through this traditional AI, and it's very quick. You know? It's just rules, how much to spend this amount, how much to do this. What? How do I do this? Done? So we not getting into the other levels of AI, which is enough? No, it solves our problem. Thank you. We still have two gentlemen here who are still thinking one or two first. Okay,
okay, thanks. My view is
getting the AI, yeah. I think will work. But the challenge would be the security part of it, like people would think of, is it safe to use it?
Is it? Yes, all this. And then the second part of the challenge would be the last mile of accessibility. I'm thinking that the Pacific Islands, the main like the remote access from the remote islands to the main centers are still the challenge. So yes, AI will work, but it's just that the remote users will have it basic challenge to use the aivities station that the HQ like at the main centers or something. Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. That's correct, getting the access to everybody, and having equal access to people who are in the remote, who are in the rural, who are in the urban.
And maybe
one of the impacts could be that it could divide no digitally divide the population further. Some people are able to use it and progress, and they are just there. So the divide actually widens. It possibly it's a good challenge, and my brother will talk about that. No, when it comes to our tent to talk, you know, actually I, I would like to echo what the other has already said for the Pacific that is quite new, that needs
a ground level awareness, maybe,
or we need to take it out to the community. But for me, I think that the brother from Tonga has mentioned regarding the medication or the medical field, I think that needs to be probably faced among us, how we can integrate this AI thing into medical field, for example, if in the Pacific, if you see
the last 30 or
40 years there were, if you, if you check our background, we normally don't get sick easily, because the food that we eat maybe our way of living before. But if we can integrate something, I collect all those sorts of data, you know, like and allow this, I think, to help our communities, our people on the information based how they used to live in now, or what are other changes that has been happening. I think that will be beneficial for us. If someone from the community goes and check the information through this AI tool. Maybe, you know, the diets and all those stuff, maybe traditional medication they used to take, the food they used to eat now is changes. And you know, the medication that we need to take, you know, just allow some form of interaction between us. And this is them, I think, probably that, probably a little bit of thought that can be given to that as well. Sorry, that's my thank you. I think it's a very good point which dovetails well with your telemedicine and the healthcare. Because one of the most important bit in the healthcare, when we talk about the first
level of treatment, would be the from the indigenous knowledge. You know, it doesn't have to be from this medication in the pharmacy. It could be basically like, if there's a cut, it could be using some sort of a leaf to stop the blood from gushing out. No, so the first level of treatment could be basically using the traditional knowledge. Don't you think so? A little bit, little bit, we haven't solved the problem, but just we have a specific way of doing things to fix Yes, thank you, and we are moving this side now.
My name is mine. I think
there's too many comments in
this room, same team.
Well, everyone has been talking about the positive things, or like, the benefits
of artificial intelligence.
I just want to pose a question
like,
What are the negative impacts of artificial intelligence, if we come into the let's say, for example, the healthcare work. Would artificial intelligence in the future replace us with our jobs, or just want to post that question that everyone would be interested to hear. What everyone thinks replacing Good question
is Yeah,
I think what was the threat of introducing? What's the threat of introducing? Just to
the Pacific? So,
we could all answer that question, not only me, because
there are many, many disadvantages, isn't it? Even in the health sector we've
been talking about the healthcare
suppose the first level of treatment is wrong. Suppose AI finds out a different medication, doomed. Main disadvantages of it as well, because it's learning, like I said yesterday, suppose you just put in
a question, it will give a wrong answer, most probably, but then after a while, after some learning, it will give a better answer.
So some some other disadvantages you just came in. So yeah, I'm not going to answer like directly, but
I think
from my use of AI, it's mostly the
positive side of it. I
mean, I'm embracing AI even though it's new in in
our lives. But
the negative side of AI is specifically when you put in, like, wrong data, or when AI doesn't understand it, it thinks otherwise, and it gives you a wrong like diagnosis, and then it gives you a wrong prescription. So, from my experience, like, I ensure I know the outcome, and then I would put in these scripts, and then if I see that, okay, the AI, like, writes the something correctly, the scripts correctly, then I would deploy it like in terms of my work. So basically it depends on what we feed the AI. So it doesn't really replace human being. It just complements our work and it makes eating
no, but because I can't speak for the Pacific, as I'm not from the Pacific.
I mean, I'm just mostly here for listening. But
maybe one of the thing I'm thinking about, one of the challenge, maybe it's not only like gathering data, but how is it stored? What's the storage solution? How data can be securely stored? Because it's even in the health sector, for example, it's kind of sensitive data, I guess. So maybe one of the challenge could be the storage of data, security, like how to secure the data? Basically,
no just before
comment, yeah, I think one of the things is privacy. If you're connecting, if AI is actually connected to a sort of a sensitive
database or something, it will actually potentially be breached or somebody can access those information. But I just want to very important that although we need or want to use, it's essential for AI for whatever we're actually doing, but I think we're trying to improve efficiency using AI, but we're not removing the human factor. So humans should always be there to validate what's actually being provided, and that should be an awareness for people as well. So people who understand AI knows that you need to actually validate what's actually being produced or output from from the AI, some other people that will just take whatever is actually coming out of our AI. So human effect that should be there. We don't rely heavily on AI. So just for improvement, efficiency and productivity as well. Thank you.
No, I was thinking like, how you guys managed to get all the data from different sectors,
and I mean, how
did you manage to get all the data from all different sectors, and willing to, like, share all the data? So, is, excuse me, in terms of the community initiatives that we do provide, this is
like first hand data. We're out there in the community, we're
training and we're
teaching, we're getting feedback from the people. So that's how we collect our data. It's, it's, it's literally firsthand. Anything else beyond that, we don't just take it from a what I've learned is, in Samoan, the data that's provided in the bureaus doesn't truly depict what we experience and our first hand experience from the community. So all the data we've collected, especially in terms of learning, what we teach to the to the kids, and what it's just firsthand data, because we've gone out to the community, we've engaged the community, and we've collected the feedback from the teachers to the students, to the leaders of each village in each district. So that is the data we've collected. And it's a matter of just questions posed and answers, and then obviously collecting that in a sort of like archive type of way. And that's what we've through, the help of code Avengers have have archived that within their systems on how child learning how kids are accepting code, especially in Samoa and especially in very rural areas. Because this is a this is a resource that very rural remote areas like savai monono, places like that. I think just to add on that
for the data,
it's a challenge. We have to like what we've just discussed. We have to go to that level
to collect the data. The data is actually a correct and verified one someone gives that strong debt. For example, what we've discussed is like a medication, right? Traditional medication, for example, if that medication doesn't work for some people, the AI will be failure, you know, like, what we have in the database should be absolutely like we have verified this is the correct solution for any kind of anything that data has to be collected and verified. Just to give you another perspective, it is very difficult to get the data. Some data which we collect, that's our own data. We
can tokenize it, and we can use
it, but say, for example, you want medical records. Fiji is very known for multiple amputations, and we want to look at the lifestyle, look at the personal data of people, and then predict, okay, maybe you have to do this to prevent your next amputation, you know. But then it's very difficult to get that personal data. People will not share the data. So there is, there is one big challenge in the right data. I just talked about the medical but there will be many sections you can't and how we can get access to the data, I have no idea. Maybe you can tokenize it, remove all the personal information, and then work on it. That's what we are trying to do now. But, yeah, big challenge, because AI will survive when this is huge amount of data. Otherwise it's it will be known for its inaccuracy, and obviously you'll talk about data right data challenges when we go up there. Thank you. Thank you. See, we collecting our see, we have the situation here. We can always know everybody will volunteer. Sorry, I don't, because as a cyber security officer and we had
a few cases,
including stolen phones and things. The challenges part is the ISPs can't share with us like so we will collaborate with the police, our police officers in investigative looking for the stolen foods, I mean phones, and then, like, they have given us, like, I may, what's, I mean numbers, but we, you know, it's beyond because we don't have the data. So, you know, sometimes the investigation is still the ISPs are not sharing, so we leave it with the police to still from silver.
You are ready with your topic
right to discuss you and your
I think one other question which she raised, I believe, was, will
This
advert of AI pushes out of the workforce?
I Yes, so let's have a discussion, and maybe you can discuss that when we go up, no, it's a really good one, because many people questioning that. So what do you what do we think about that? Okay, I have a mic. I'll just repeat what I said earlier. Yeah, I'm a strong advocate of AI because it really helps me. So definitely, I don't think AI will replace
me
as a network engineer in any way. Even though I'm able to automate the network I will still be useful to see that. But whatever data is input is it works as it should. Otherwise it might do something else. How about your help desk? You're talking about the engineer level. How about at the top level? No, not at the top level, at the reception level.
Somebody asking, Can
I have the number of Gina? Can I have this?
Yeah, so we have the database, the AI hub, yeah, so, yeah, yeah, okay, there are some things that can be replaced, but there are some things that can't be replaced with AI. And
I think whatever is replaced, we will find way of
better things. Yeah,
more involved. I
at Roseburg, I
release. Okay? For me, I don't think AI will replace workforce, as I mentioned earlier about the call center. We are very short staff, very
short capacity, so it will ease the workflow, because we have people workers, like having 12 hours shift, so that will Easter hours, like six hours or so so. And also AI will not perfectly work. So there is a time that the human being had to be there to actually correct the role of the AI. So no, I don't think AI replaced workforce. Yeah, it only.
I think it's all like depends
on the intention
of the sort of like organization. So if
they're driven profit, they can actually cut resources
to actually save some
unit. But if you want to your intention actually improve efficiency and productivity, you can actually redirect your staff, like you mentioned, to actually focus in some areas which we lack of, or they lack of. So it depends on also in the company's intention as well. So yeah, you can use it for benefits of your entirety of your staff, or your big company, or just profit driven.
Don't really know what to add,
maybe doing a PhD,
I would say that AI can't really replace my work,
especially in social science, as there is a lot of people to people interaction. I'm conducting interviews with people. So I I don't know if an AI could really replace this. And maybe the doing, actually PhD is more feeding the AI than the opposite. Yeah, you have two more minutes and then wrap up because we have lunch at one. So please try to wrap up your discussions and be
back back here at two more minutes, please? Yeah, I definitely agree AI is a complement to the work that we do. Clearly, the more entry
level type of that just helps us, especially our businesses and our work, more efficient and cost effective. However, when it comes to decision making, and you know, where it needs that human element to make decisions, I mean, it's a computer that doesn't have common sense, you know, or the ability to make decisions, like off the cuff. So to me, I'm very comfortable in the fact that it will not replace me and my team and what we do in the community, and a lot the work, a lot of the that we do is very people, person to person, engagement with the community. So that is something that I you know, that does not threaten what we do as an Islander, yeah. Oh, and if I can add, I maybe, maybe you can find solutions that AI can help also, because what our people suffer from is high blood pressure, diabetes, AI, to gentlemen's point, can can offer solutions for our people, like, maybe the data could be their blood sugar levels and their high blood pressure, what, you know, whatever data we put in there, what it can what it can offer, the solutions that it can offer, what to eat, you know, so it could possibly work to that. It just popped in my head that maybe AI can provide some sort of solution to that. You might have. There was a report by World Economic
Forum,
World Economic Forum 2023
last year. May have
a read through it will say how the workforce
will change, why it will need more people who, who will need to know data analytics will need to know automation, will need to know all these things. So, like you're saying, it will complement some positions will be there. Positions will go, for example, we don't worry, maybe to prepare the budget, the AI will be able to do that. So we don't. Probably will need accountant in that oh no, with that skill set that will be taken up by AI, but it will open up other areas, other bigger areas, which we will get into. Have a read through that report. It's a really nice one, or email me. I'll send it to you. Positive is it'll just, it'll just encourage people to
for higher education, to learn more, to upskill you know, themselves
for that, I guess.
Sure I have we should
have and please,
let's be in contact. We
can help each other with
projects. I It
says, so we are ready. Who will take a start? It's
supposed to be ladies first right. Delta is looking that side before that he was always looking here.
Nice. Counting the pigeons.
Yeah.
So we have Lenora
will talk about project and some of the challenges. We have Walter to talk about the challenges.
It's a really nice one to talk about the change in the workforce. Think about it. Nobody will ask
you any question. If they ask, we will,
we'll handle it.
Yeah, the Bongi, and you too will take care of that, and
maybe the last
one, the two ladies here can take care of the
service center, call center, as well as the engineering, the
salt default analysis and the displacement and the dependency. We did well, would you want to talk about your PhD as well. Empowering it.
I tell you something
just I think a month ago,
somebody submitted the master's thesis, and it was all AI generated, and that person was founded, time removed. Can I have all of you back to your seats.
You can see, okay, okay, now it's time for us to recap
before our activity.
Any group wants to come first, you only have two minutes,
and if you have
straight face,
okay, two to five minutes for each group. If you're ready, then make your way.
Make your way up here.
So this is group, group four. Can
you put? I
Can you
Yes, hello,
hello, Okay, hello, everyone. Good afternoon.
Okay,
can I ask you? Excuse me, stand up and let's do some stretch.
You just say to your neighbor, this is your moment. Nice to see you here.
Okay, my name is Jason
lamini.
I'm from. I come from Solomon Islands, and yeah, I work hotel communication company. So okay, however, I will be the presenter for our group for So, yeah, our topic of discussion is digital infrastructure. So the theme for a group that we we highlight is looking at safeguarding digital infrastructure against sorts of disasters. Okay,
as we we all know that
we cannot stand against disaster, the force of disaster or the nature of digital we cannot
stand against it.
It's very, it's very, it's very strong. No human being can stand against disaster, even no stronger network can stand against disaster. But we can create, we can come up with something that can, you know, at least able to sustain our digital infrastructure during disaster, okay, however,
the challenge is that,
with no doubt, or our group no doubt,
that we think that These are the challenges
that digital infrastructure face
during business starts. First one is data gap.
What I mean is limited and unreliable, unreliable, climate related data, especially in developing regions, campus, effective decision making. Second is system integrate, integration, lack of communication between digital tools can lead to fragmented strategy for climate resilience and third digital divide, various technology and digital skills make implementation difficult across different communities and cyber security risk increased digital resilience exposed organization to potential cyber threats, jeopardizing climate resilience efforts. And one of the challenges is regulate pre handles, complex that the privacy and mental regulations post challenges Okay, the same guiding actions that we,
that we strongly take, that Can
we can apply during
Jesus does or can help our digital infrastructure during this test is one number one, data backup and recovery and network security, physical Security, incident response planning, access control, software updates and vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, employee training and compliance with regulations and testing drills Move over regular backups follows intrusion detection system and VPNs are essential for reducing data loss or sub recovery processes. The physical security includes secure data centers greater than power supplies and environmental monitoring systems. Incident response planning involves dedicated team, clear response, procedure and regular training drills. Yeah, these are the actions that we can apply during during digital or this actions for the
resilience,
okay, I will continue. I regular software updates and tax management are crucial for protecting system from vulnerabilities, and
regular vulnerability and penetrations
testing are necessary to identify and mitigate mitigate infrastructure weakness. And lastly, employee training and awareness and data security, PC awareness and Incident Reporting, essential complaints
with regulations and thorough
documentation are so crucial. So I would say about tackling these challenges and leveraging opportunities organization can improve their climate resilience through effective digital management, fostering a more sustainable future. Thank you.
Thank you. And online from Netsafe New Zealand and my colleague, said, just to start with a quick complaint about the undemocratic process that surveying
the speakers up here. So just want that noted to begin with, but
here we are nonetheless.
So we were also digital infrastructure and development talk about the challenges and the solutions that the main conversation around the challenges was in the ability the repair and upkeep of the physical infrastructure that provide the connectivity in spaces. People talked about how we maintain
a return on investment in that infrastructure,
towers and that kind of investment. Is that ever really a profitable model where we talk about organizations investing ISPs or others investing in getting that infrastructure in, and then with the idea that it pays them back over time, does that ever pay them back? And therefore, is it really a useful model to look at it as a potentially one day profitable model? A lot of that because of things like power. How do you ensure that there's power there as well, where are the geographic locations that are required to do it? So those are, are some of the challenges that were identified in terms of the opportunities lot of talk about, about satellite communication, about Starlink, and how that may well be a itself to get around some of those issues, but also discussions about the kind of idea of micro or community based networks to provide infrastructure close to where people are, people are using them. So the idea of running fibers between locations, and then potentially have individual locations, schools or places within the community could then be able to be an access point, provide access for for the community. And sort of two models were talked about, a kind of micro commercial model, the idea that some people could become localized ISPs in those spaces and provide that connectivity, versus a more sort of community focused model for providing that connectivity. So way forward is looking at the community model. How can the community build infrastructure and sustain
it? The other one is
look at the resilience of the infrastructure. What do we need to address? And how do we address them, whether it's through insurance or the availability of resources, given that in an emergency, some of the resources that might have been damaged, how do we facilitate do we need to have supply in country in terms of what thresholds of those supply needs to be present in country, working with the government in terms of processing public private partnerships in terms of, how do we share the load, in terms of facilitating Sustainable communication through infrastructure sharing, also, how do we facilitate or address the need for newer technology, and what skill sets do we need to propose in terms of the economic circle for future technology changes? And also, where do we look at in terms of the community model and nation to nation approaches in terms of the diaspora of those economies, how do we address investments from external partners to sustain local developments, and then looking at ways of influencing the bigger players like Google, Facebook, X and other various cloud providers that could provide services in the Pacific in terms of sustainability of data management and resource facilitation. And on the final note, how can we utilize the universal access fund approach in terms of incentivizing elements of funding, in terms of digital products and digital services that we provide. So I think these are some of our approaches in terms of the way forward. But if there's questions, we will happy to answer for those on a cup of tea as well
as so can I have,
is so our group discuss digital inclusion and capacity building, and I'm just a backup for my presenter here. She'll do that presentation. Thank you.
Thank you. Letty.
So the resounding issue that was discussed within the
group was that
we have a lack of academics in the region, and also externally as well, it's difficult to find academics in specific areas that we would like to, you know, go into so like
AI and sector.
One of the issue is that, how do we leverage? Well, if there's an existing expert in that area, how do you leverage them to come to a small Pacific island country to teach us stuff that we would like to know, that will help us to, you
know, build our capacity. I um,
one of the solutions that we see is that we should include ICT lessons in the school curriculums.
So the resounding agreement
in the group was that almost don't have the ICT curriculum in the primary schools, whereas we should teach our children young. So that is one of the solutions that we suggested that we should include that in our primary school curriculum. So I think most of the countries have the secondary school curriculum, but not the primary one. And we also highlighted that digital inclusion has to include people living with disability, because we have the tools out there, but usually we overlook them in our discussions and always target just a general modulation when we talk about digital inclusion, there are some solutions that are happening out there that we can replicate in other countries. In Tonga, they provide cheaper internet for students. You have to go with your ID card in order to purchase cheaper internet To access Academic Resources and stuff. We this is provided by the Techo telcos. It's not being subsidized by government. So that is a model that we can use in other Pacific Island countries. The opportunity out there that we would like to highlight is that all projects nowadays have a capacity building aspect to it, that people deliver these projects or involved in these projects have to accomplish. So it's a necessity, and we should leverage on that and build the capacity of our people when these projects are in our countries, my group members and my co presenter, if they have anything else to add, anyone else in it, I think we're fine. If you have questions again, please see us over you.
Thank you. Group three, can we have a group six?
Okay, yeah,
yeah, okay, so you can present from anywhere you
Good afternoon. My
name is Lenore Leota, and I'm with
way barless from Samoa. Our group is discussing AI innovation and
entrepreneurship. Today, I'm just going to highlight some of the things that we agree on that AI is will be a great enhancer, will be good in terms of fields such as climate change, climate resilience, climate preparedness, if our people are aware ahead of time and be prepared to whatever they need to, they can then have enough time to prepare and have redundancy should there be a natural catastrophe. The same can work in terms of learning tools and training work that we have with Avengers, we've collected enough data to tap into the traits of kids from ages 10 to 16, on how they can on how they've learned and their abilities in terms of coding. So these are some of the further to that. A lot, a few of my colleagues will discuss how AI can help improve our lives in a more meaningful way. The challenges, however, is predicated on the data that we collect. The the influence and the enhancement that AI can provide us all depends on the data that we input. So these are some of the challenges that we have in terms of working with a
with AI and I'll
hand it to my colleague here, who will add for the health sector and how AI can
improve. Walter from
Fiji. I'll be talking about some of the stuff specifically for health, health sector. So
considering the
context of the Pacific island country, slimte resources, funding, whatnot, they think it's important to actually try and utilize AI to support some of these areas. For instance, especially for for Tonga, we only have one radiologist, so to actually utilize AI to actually strengthen or improve efficiency and productivity, to reduce waiting time for patients. There'll be much better. And also in the area of data analytics professionals, I think we lack that as well. We do have habit of collecting a lot of data, but we don't actually use analyze those data, so it'll be essential to actually utilize AI for that, by raise of hands for we go to actually explore this, these options, to waste your money, I mean, to utilize your money and exploring These options, yes, or
these technologies. Ai, thank you. Oh.
During the discussion, we also, like discussed the
process of artificial intelligence, and then we also discussed the negative impacts of
using artificial intelligence. So
interesting that was will AI places in the workplace. And so a lot of discussion went into this where we we discussed that artificial intelligence will greatly increase efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace, but there is still a need for the human factor for artificial intelligence, and I think that was the issue covered. Thank you. Applause.
Hi everyone coming
from the telecommunications company. How AI would benefit us?
I think it would
impact our course under August, we still have a lot of people waiting online for
for a course in the office that answer the phone and actually just explain to them basic information, such as, how can we subscribe to this mobile data plan, or how can we connect to your APN to actually enable our mobile data so for me, I think AI will Come into hand in that perspective. So all those standard information will be provided, and the customer needs to talk to a human being on the other ISP or mobile, then there is a human that would direct that to the to the designated troop. So for that, it will ease the pay the trope for the courses, it would also provide profit for the company.
Hi all. Sonia
Papua, New Guinea, so
obviously AI is a very hot topic right now, coming from telco industry, speaking
on behalf of a network engineer. So maybe other industries would have their own towards AI in their own subject areas, but as a telco engineer,
and due to the human resource
challenges that we have and expected in network engineering, I'm already resorting to using AI and network automation to increase efficiency in network engineering. Also, I'm doing that for failovers, if there's any you know network outage, so I can just fail over the network. So I'm using artificial intelligence, and network automates that, so it's really helpful. So for Pacific, where we have these challenges in terms of human resources, we can always resort to it. I'm not saying that it makes us become lazy to do our job, but it only enhances it. It makes our job more smarter. Thank you very
Thank you, Jonathan, you're welcome. So
Jonathan brewer here on behalf of
group five. We discussed policy and regulatory frameworks and
wow, lights are
so oh my gosh.
Oh so I represented Aotearoa. We had two representatives of Fiji, one each from Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. And we talked about whether or not we had a telecoms or telecom competition regulator, whether there were some regulations governing cyber security, and if there was a cert in the country. We talked regulations governing the operation of the ccTLD, so the the dot country code domain for that country, and the answers kind of ranged from Aotearoa, where everything's completely deregulated and hands off, to some much more regular environments. So what are the challenges? The real challenges facing the region are competition from overseas providers who are bringing rent into the markets without having local presence. They may not be following local regulations, and they may not be paying local taxes, and that's a big challenge. Another big challenge is quality of service in some markets where it's highly competitive and very cheap, but maybe the performance isn't very good, and you can't always get a good service opportunities. Well, the here we go with those overseas satellite providers again, the pressure, they put pressure on the carriers to reduce pricing. And so that means that Fiji, 10 years ago, Fiji's data was very expensive, and now it's the third cheapest in the world. So very cheap data, mobile data in Fiji, very cheap mobile data in Tonga. And these are great things for the communities. And so what's next? It could be useful for the regulators of the region to talk about this specific issue these companies operating in their markets, because we know that the one that everybody stuffs in their suitcases is running now, but we're about to have some competition from them In the form of Amazon's Kuiper project, so there are going to be a couple of different Leo networks up there, and the Chinese are launching their own. So who knows, it could be a very busy space, and there could be a lot for the regulators in the region to think about so much new competition. Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Group five and the last one two.
Jim, Tora, from meeting to cyber security and protection,
there's a lot to back in there
that even when it came for time's up, we were still talking about
the different challenges. So
my other colleague here will be talking about the way forward. But some of the challenges that we we've seen, and some of it also ties to the, I guess, the language declaration that was passed a couple of weeks ago. I guess, in terms of the security awareness for cyber security, you know, in terms of the education we do not see cyber security being part of the curriculum most at the tertiary level, but the secondary level, we see that some of the education syllabus is more more theoretical and adaptive to real world. And so we're seeing there's a lot of retraining happening across the Pacific, we also see some of the challenges around cybersecurity, laws
and policies. If you
want to put in a policy, but the law says you can't do something, and so policies need to be updated and changed. So the laws need to be changed before we can put in some of these national policies, we saw risk management is a challenge as well around some of the in terms of data protection and the risk of onboarding third parties who have access to this data
or route access to
our equipment. Some of the challenges also looked at, I guess, access to funds, to be able to fund some of the programs. I'll hand this over to my colleague who will speak forward on way forward. Hello, as you can see, my friend here, he mentioned some of the issues about
opportunities and challenges. So coming from the Pacific, we can see some of
the similar opportunities in cybersecurity also, and similar challenges in cybersecurity and data protection. So I want to ask you guys, if you guys heard about City dialog,
smart Pacific,
that's the 10
Lakota declaration. No, okay,
this is some of the ways that
we believe that from the Pacific IGF, we
could have our voice be heard in all
this declaration that are coming on. So under the Pacific ICT declaration that was all held in 2023 in Papua, New
Guinea, we have all the Pacific ICT ministers and
EDS. That was part of the forum. I was also part of that, because my department, and I work at ICT Department of Information and Communication Technology, leading that forum in Port Mosby. I was the bilateral lead, and I was there, and some of the very important issues in regard to what we're raising here, and talking was discussed in there, and under the Pacific location, Pacific city dialog, that's the lakato declaration on the digital Pacific lakato
is A traditional coastal
vessel, so that kind of signifies the Pacific life that we have in regard to our seas. So under the lacator declaration, we have identified six strategies pillars that is online, you can have a look at that. And the six priority areas are first one that kind of go in line with cybersecurity and tech is priority one is digital transformation. Priority four is digital security and trust. Priority five is digital capacity building and skills development. So these are some of the things that we can include in data protection and cyber security, also the Pacific Islands from our Secretariat. We could also have a say in there, if you know that you are in a portion in either a government department or society or private sector, and you are part of this every time a policy is implemented or draft you could have just say, representing every one of us. So that's it. Thank you.
What about another round of applause for everyone?
Thank you, everyone for your contribution to
this session, and this because you don't have the opportunities to come up here and share
and present your insights, but this is another good opportunities,
you know, to share and hear from others their challenges and the solutions to much similar to yours, as we have heard already, it's a lot of duplications, because we do the same thing, though, we have the same problem, we solve the same solution. So to wrap up this sentence, as I mentioned, that we want to share the insights in this group discussions, because we need to discuss the significant opportunities that we face and the significant and how these substantial opportunities to help out. Because if we navigating, as we heard this morning and this afternoon, the opportunities how we capitalize it, then this will lead to transformation as we discuss it in these two days, this formative challenges that will bring up the opportunities as well to help out with our economy, to help out with our society, and then we drive that into brokers and creating value across a multi multiple sectors. Because not all of us come come from ICT departments. We have become from different departments, different sectors, but we have that common goal, if we able to coordinate, to collaborate, the platform, the Crown level, the level one of the layer seven that has to be built, and then come up to level level seven, from layer one to layer seven, where we have these applications we're using, if we build it, the layer one properly goes up to layer seven, where the applications that we join using it and the knowledge of Our people to keep upgrading, making awareness digitally literate, then I think we're in space. That's how to wrap up our this session. Thank you very much for everyone for your contribution, and lunch is already served.
See you back here next Thank you.
You.
The chairs on the table
for husband sweat. Closing time and I'm a little tired.
