Multilateral Solutions for Global Governance of the ... · countries as well as the developed world. Among these China will play a prominent role, given the size of her digital economy,

White Paper

Multilateral Solutions for Global Governance of the Information and Communications Technology Industry

UK - China Global Issues Dialogue Centre

Multilateral Solutions for Global Governance of the Information and Communications Technology Industry 1

Foreword

The white paper sets out some of the critical issues that areemerging in the area of global governance of the digitaleconomy and begin to develop some policy proposals toaddress these challenges. Given my own long interest andresearch in aspects of global governance and related law, I amespecially pleased to acknowledge this initiative of the UK-ChinaGlobal Issues Dialogue Centre at Jesus College in the Universityof Cambridge from which this white paper is the first fruit.

The fourth industrial revolution is accelerating with the growthof the Internet of Things (IoT), Fifth Generation (5G) mobilecommunications, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI). While promising major opportunities this revolution is alsocreating new and challenging global issues as the needs ofgeopolitics, security and commerce collide.

It is currently unfashionable in a world of increasing bi-lateral tensions to focus on the potential of multilateral governance solutions. I believe, however, that it is only with discussion andimplementation of creative, multilateral solutions that we can hope to properly address these majorgovernance gaps. I also believe the need is becoming urgent, because our governance arrangementsand tools are lagging behind advances in technology and its impacts. The process of forging a newgovernance system can no longer only be centred on the United States and Europe because thefourth industrial revolution is progressing at equal, if not greater, pace and impact in emergingcountries as well as the developed world. Among these China will play a prominent role, given the size of her digital economy, technological capabilities, and the rapid pace at which new,digital technologies are transforming both the Chinese economy and society.

The University of Cambridge has had a long and proud tradition of engaging with China going backto the pioneering work of Joseph Needham and beyond. Likewise, we see ourselves very much aspart of the global, connected community, cooperating closely with other universities, institutes ofhigher learning, policy makers, and business to push forward our understanding of major issues ofconcern to the world and help develop innovative solutions.

I am therefore delighted that the UK-China Global Issues Dialogue Centre at Jesus College hostedthis dialogue, with such a rich mix of discussants drawn from academia, business, policy institutes,and international organisations has examined the growing challenges associated with thegovernance of international communications and data infrastructures and develop proposals forinnovative, multilateral solutions outlined in this white paper.

Professor Stephen J Toope

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge

2 Multilateral Solutions for Global Governance of the Information and Communications Technology Industry

Contents

Foreword 1Executive Summary 3

Part I: Options for Data and Communications Infrastructure Governance

Preface 5Introduction: The Threats to a Shared Communications System 6Specific Governance Challenges 7A Typology of Possible Responses 9Emerging Initiatives – What can be built on? 11Short-term Options and Potential Alignments 13

Cybersecurity Standards 13Trade and Trust 13

Longer-term Possibilities 14Create a Global Communications Observatory 14Design Open Protocols to Support Self-Governance 15Build on Moves towards AI Global Governance 16A Global Communications Infrastructure Integrity Commission 16

Next Steps 17

Part II: The Dialogue

Background 18Analysis of Existing Governance Challenges 18Typology of Governance Responses and the Emerging Initiatives in Response to the

Governance Challenges 22Short-term Options 25Longer-term Possibilities 28Concluding Comments 31

Part III: Participant Biographies 32

Part IV: References

Some Selected Links and Supporting Materials 50 About the UK-China Global Issues Dialogue Centre 52


Just as communications infrastructure hasbecome even more central to daily life and tothe economy, and just as their capabilities arebeing amplified by AI and other technologies, we are also becoming much more aware of itsvulnerability. It is threatened by direct attacks;by the risk of splintering; and by distrust. Against this background, our dialogue focusedon four main questions:

● What are the key threats to a shared globaldata and communications system?

● What are the possible responses andinitiatives already underway that we mightbuild upon?

● What actions might be taken in the shortterm?

● What longer term initiatives might be effect,including building new global governanceinstitutions?

The challenges identified can be classified intotwo main categories:

● Specific issues arising from the rapiddevelopment of information andcommunications technologies including issuesassociated with the transfer, trading andstorage of data (freedom of data flows,privacy, consumer protection), maintaining anenvironment conducive to competition andinnovation, cybersecurity, election tampering,child protection the impacts of adoptingartificial intelligence and innovations inFintech.

● Challenges associated with growinggeopolitical conflicts arising from differencesin value systems around the world andconcerns about future nationalcompetitiveness in the global market that

may results in the barriers to global dataflows and fragmentation of communicationssystems and the Internet which may, in turn,risk of higher costs; more friction; lessintegration; less innovation, and reduced easeof use for consumers.

Our dialogue identified a number of responsesthat could be adopted in the short term,including:

● Building in initiatives already under waythrough the United Nations, the InternationalTelecommunication Union (ITU), theEuropean Union, the G20, the OECD) theEuropean Telecommunications StandardsInstitute (ETSI), Global Commission onInternet Governance and the GlobalCommission on the Stability of Cyberspace(GCSC), International Competition Network(ICN), standards alliances such as 3GPP, and Industry-led initiatives. These should befocused on facilitating trade and trust building with the aim of fostering a commonunderstanding among negotiating members;making use of the expertise on data flows and on the digital economy from otherinternational organisations; and promotingholistic policy discussions on theopportunities and challenges arising fromgrowth in the digital economy.

● Accelerating the development of a global“Cyber Security Standards Agreement”.

Over the longer we recommend pursuing aseries of practical initiatives aimed at building anew set of institutions to help govern theemerging digital economy. Specifically:

● Creating a global communicationsobservatory, similar to the Inter-governmentalPanel on Climate Change, to provide a sharedpicture of issues, threats and opportunities,

Executive Summary1

1 This executive summary and the overall structure of the white paper was prepared Professor Peter Williamson, Chair of the

UK-China Global Issues Dialogue Centre and co-host of this digital economy dialogue.


based on deep technical expertise, andpossibly act in a certification role. Such a body would need to be designed in a way that ensured it had high visibility, including tothe world’s publics helping to raise theunderstanding and literacy of decision-makers.

● Designing open protocols to support self-governance, which can be consistentlyupdated as new, more secure and effective“building blocks” emerge, and to which anymember of the community can contribute,will ensure buy-in from a larger range ofactors, and pre-empt some issues and furtherharms by design. This would requirecollaboration between governments (as funder, overseer and potentially alsoprocurer) and the open source community indesigning not just the legal but also technicalframework for data portability.

● Building on moves towards AI globalgovernance, creating standards that embed a version of the golden rule – ‘do unto others what you would have them to you’ – to ensures action to constrain predatory,harmful and exploitative uses of technology.

● Establishing a Global CommunicationsInfrastructure Integrity Commission, thatwould accredit and certify the integrity ofinfrastructures. It would need rights ofinspection of software and hardware; a high level of technical expertise; and support from governments and business.In return for opening themselves toinspection, countries and companies wouldbe accredited as trustworthy.


In October 2019 Jesus College in Cambridgebrought together leading figures from across theworld involved in government, politics, business,academia and global institutions to look at thepotential for solving some of the dilemmas ofglobal communications governance.

We did not expect consensus. But the discussionshowed a significant convergence of thinking,and suggested that, with the right leadership,progress could be possible in the next 5-10 years to protect and grow one of the world’sunique shared resources: communicationsinfrastructures that are open, free, safe andreliable.

There were specific proposals both short-termand long-term – described at the end of thisreport – but also a shared feeling that theseissues now need better ways of being discussed,engaging academia, media and the world’spublics.

The traditional models of largely invisible expertdecision-making worked well for many decades.But they may no longer be sustainable given theimportance of communications, the intensepressures of geopolitics and the degree of publicinterest in the issues. Also, a key feature of ourdiscussion was the much more prominent rolenow taken by China, and Chinese companies, in global communications, and the need for new approaches that fully include them.

The last three decades have brought atransformation in how the world thinks, and talks, about the environment. What wasonce a largely invisible discussion amongstexperts has become far more engaged andinclusive. We now need a comparable shift inhow we think, and talk about, our other vital,shared resource, the communications systemson which we all depend.

Part I: Options for Data and CommunicationsInfrastructure Governance2

Preface

2 Part I of this report was written by Dr Geoff Mulgan CBE, co-host of the dialogue and former Chief Executive of the National

Endowment for Science Technology (Nesta).


The global communications system – includingthe Internet and WorldWideWeb, smart phonesand the Internet of Things – is an extraordinaryshared good. It is a common property that allowsnear-universal communication. At its best itprovides a safe and private space for citizens, as well as supporting almost every aspect of themodern economy.

But just as communications infrastructure hasbecome even more central to daily life and tothe economy, and just as their capabilities arebeing amplified by AI and other technologies, we are also becoming much more aware of itsvulnerability. It is threatened by direct attacks;by the risk of splintering; and by distrust.

The result is the emergence of a series of novelchallenges involving data and communication.These appear not to be easily soluble at anational or bilateral level and are prompting adebate about the need for new forms oftransnational governance.

These issues sit at the interface of trade,infrastructure, technology and governance. They potentially threaten free and open trade,easy and reliable communication, data flows andconnectivity. They are feeding into, andsometimes fuelling, the broader trend towards‘decoupling’, as the US and China intensify theircompetition with each other, a trend that maycontinue whichever party wins the next USPresidential election.

The fields they involve include:

● Infrastructure integrity and trade restrictions

● Data and privacy● Cybersecurity● Global Internet governance● AI governance/regulation● Internet of Things

The issues are complex. The 21st centuryeconomy and society are utterly dependent on

communication. If the UN was being created in the 2010s rather than the 1940s, it’s possiblethat the multilateral governance ofcommunications might have been as central toits institutions as the arrangements designedafter WW2 to govern and influence flows ofmoney (the IMF, World Bank and others).

Instead, with the exception of the InternationalTelecommunications Union (the ITU, originallycreated in 1865 to handle telegraphcommunications), there are none.

The many past attempts to start a global debate about more systematic design of newgovernance arrangements all ran into the sand.These include the debates over the New WorldInformation and Communication Order in the1970s and 1980s (which prompted the US andUK to leave UNESCO).

More recently the rise of the Internet promptedthe World Summit on the Information Society in2003-5 and the Internet Governance Forum.Arguments about the role of ICANN andtreatment of issues such as spam and illegalcontent, or whether Internet governance shouldbe restricted to management of names andaddresses, have remained unresolved throughthe WSIS+10 meetings and continuing dialogueson the role of ICT in development.

So far, none of these debates have led to thecreation of any new global institutionscomparable to those in finance, health,development or refugees, and there is noobvious locus for negotiations over issues such as data privacy or cybersecurity.

But although current conditions look unfavourablefor new multilateral initiatives, history suggeststhat the creation of new global institutions couldhappen quite suddenly when there is the rightalignment of interests and ideas. Moreover,standards bodies like ETSI continue to be quietlysuccessful in creating common rules.

Introduction: The Threats to a SharedCommunications System


A flurry of different governance challenges arenow pushing these issues higher up politicalagendas. These are just a few of them:

● Trade/infrastructure conflicts (e.g. overHuawei, and arguments over whethernational intelligence services are creatingbackdoor/trapdoor access throughcommercial companies). Various countries –notably the US and Australia – have blockedHuawei, citing intelligence concerns, butthere is currently no independent institutionable to adjudicate whether these concernsare valid.

● New requirements are being introduced ondata location, with many countries requiringlocalisation of data (e.g. India’s recent e-commerce proposals), imposing significantadditional costs on business, and ultimatelyon consumers. It is estimated that at least 45 countries now have some data localizationrequirements in place (including manyauthoritarian states, but also democraciesincluding Australia, Canada, New Zealand,South Korea and Switzerland).

● The lack of global common standards onsecurity, despite a greater quantity andintensity of cross-border cyberattacks. As the ‘attack surface’ of systems grows weare seeing ever more crises, from denial ofservice attacks on Estonia to Stuxnet andWannacry, prompting growing concernsabout the weakness of global capacities torespond.

● Anxieties over AI and trade, includingpotentially dangerous applications of AI in the military field, or the spread of algorithmsembedding biases of all kinds in traded goodsand services.

● The challenge posed by new forms of money– including blockchain-based currencies(bitcoin to Libra) which bring to the surface

issues at the interface of financial andmonetary regulation on the one hand andcommunications/data regulation on theother.

● Ongoing, and very high profile, concernsabout the influence of communications insocial media and messaging on children(which has dominated the debate aboutInternet governance in the UK).

● High levels of cross-border interference indemocratic elections (which has become aprimary concern in the EU).

● Continuing challenges over terrorism anddata sharing, and pressures for betterresponse mechanisms connectinggovernments and the major platforms,including to reduce use of social media topromote terrorist acts.

● Intensive debates about future Internetgovernance, partly prompted by the corrosion of the hope of its pioneers that theInternet would remain free, open anduniversal; and partly by challenges to theexisting arrangements (including ICANN).Russia for example this year passed a“sovereign internet bill” that would set up aself-sufficient Runet and include a “killswitch” which would shut off the globalInternet to Russian users.

● Widespread fears that next generationtechnologies may be ‘balkanised’, withsignificantly different standards and rules indifferent parts of the world. So, whereas 5Gmobile communications has developed withcommon standards, 6G may not.

All of these challenges pose the risk of highercosts; more friction; less integration; less ease of use for consumers; as well as harms of allkinds, from harms to children to harms todemocracy.

Specific Governance Challenges


The issues are very diverse. But one of thechallenges of this field is that they often overlap(which is also why we are bringing themtogether in this conversation). Moreover, it is increasingly hard to separate managementand governance of communications from

governance of other fields (e.g. finance). It is also increasingly hard to sustain thetraditional distinctions between governance ofcontent and governance of information flowsand underlying networks.


Governance responses can take many forms,from the modest and incremental to the morestrategic. Sometimes there are good reasons todo nothing; to fear that cures may be worse thanthe disease; or to add new roles onto existingbodies, including the WTO on e-commerce andthe ITU on internet regulation, rather thancreating new ones. In our discussion there wasscepticism about whether the formal globalbodies – the UN – were well-placed to providenew solutions.

In principle, these are some of the options, the potential ‘toolkit’ for future governance:

● Protocols and standards governing theoperation of networks, like GSM standards or5G (helped by the important work of 3GPP),ISO/IEC, and potential standards forinteroperability for components in smartcities or for design features of AI.

● Use of customary law, existing treaties andUN charters and applying them to new fields.

● Crisis mechanisms (as exist in finance, health and other fields) that can be rapidlyset up in response to urgent problems, like cyberattacks. These are beginning to beput in place for handling terrorist incidents.

● Treaties (for example, a treaty extending theEU’s GDPR rules to other jurisdictions linkedto trade access).

● Competition policy – aligned action ondominant companies (primarily EU and US).

● New regulatory bodies (with powers rangingfrom inspection to enforcement), like theIAEA in nuclear energy.

● Mediation arrangements to handle conflicts.

● Voluntary, industry-led initiatives, such asjoint commitments to higher cybersecuritystandards, or equivalents to the many globalarrangements around aviation.

● Observatories that aim to provide a commonglobal picture of key trends (like theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

We could add to this list the potential for moreexperimental methods. Within nationalregulation there is growing interest in what wecall ‘anticipatory regulation’ methods that useexperiments, testbeds and sandboxes; opendata; and more active public engagement to dealwith ethical and other dilemmas. These methodshaven’t yet been much used at the transnationallevel but may become part of the response; theyoffer a more flexible, adaptive approach than ispossible with the formality of treaties andinternational law. The OECD’s AI Principles(adopted by 42 countries) and the G20 AIPrinciples drawn from the OECD AI Principles,are examples of moving in this direction.

The field can also usefully learn from otherexamples in global governance – from theMontreal Protocols that galvanised global actionon the ozone layer, linking governments andbusiness, to more recent common action onissues like HIV and Malaria through hybridpartnerships.

These various options apply to the layers whichtogether make up a global communicationssystem, from physical infrastructures at thebottom through software and applications toservices and content, each of which requiresrather different regulatory and legal responses.

A Typology of Possible Responses


A rough version of the communications stack


There are many initiatives and debates alreadyunderway in this broad space, that could in timebring together both the political will for actionand better options. These include:

● Transnational moves on AI, and in particularthe announcement of the International Panelon Artificial Intelligence (IPAI) – now renamedthe Global Partnership for AI – which aims toensure some common standards over issuessuch as future of work, commercialisation,ethics and data governance and avoid a raceto the bottom on ethical standards. Canadaand France have committed to leading thiswork, while the new European CommissionPresident has also promised EU-wide actionon AI ethics.

● The Internet Governance Forum whichcontinues to organise annual gatherings ofstakeholders (most recently in November2019 in Berlin).

● Various EU initiatives post-GDPR, includingwork now underway on the design and R&Dfor the ‘Next Generation Internet’.

● ITU initiatives and other UN initiatives,including the work of the high-level groupbrought together by the Secretary Generaland their recent report on digital cooperation,and the recommendation of a GlobalCommitment on Digital Trust and Security.The Secretary General has promised to

appoint a Technology Envoy ‘to work withgovernments, industry and civil society tohelp advance international frameworks, and nurture a shared digital future that putspeople first and helps bridge the socialdivide’.

● Japan and the G20 ‘Osaka track’ to promotenew action on governance for digital issues(discussed further below), followingdiscussion of AI at every G7 since 2016.

● The many initiatives underway now oncybersecurity including the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace.

● Corporate unilateral and multilateralinitiatives, like the Digital Geneva Conventionproposed by Brad Smith of Microsoft, andFacebook’s proposals for regulation ofharmful content, privacy, portability andelection interference. Huawei’s recent offer to sell all of its underlying 5G technologieswas another particularly bold move relevantto these discussions.

● Citizen-led initiatives such as Tim Berners-Lee’s proposals for a ‘contract for the web’.

● Philanthropic initiatives to support citizen-led programmes and bodies like theW3C, or current work on cyber trust byHewlett and Carnegie.

Emerging Initiatives – What can be built on?


.A more detailed version of the communications stack –

and its key issues


What might be done in the short-term toaddress some of these challenges? Could theseinitiatives develop fast enough to becommensurable with the scale of thechallenges?

Opinion at the seminar was divided on howhopeful we should be in the short-run, against a backdrop of trade war and the rising tide ofnationalism.

But there was some optimism that a few keyareas could advance despite the climate. Here we highlight two.

Cybersecurity StandardsOne important example of action that could be taken quickly would to accelerate thedevelopment of a global “Cyber SecurityStandards Agreement” that would be trulyinternational and would build on existingapproaches to standards.

If such standards can be agreed they would aimto be technology neutral and apply to allcompanies and networks and in all regions.They would be fully public and transparent, with a neutral certification procedure thatcouldn’t be distorted by any individual nationstate or business.

As with other standards processes there wouldneed to be direct involvement of the maincommercial players as well as nation states inboth design and decision-making. Designdecisions would be based on objective evidenceand, where possible, any decisions should makeit easy to adapt and evolve the standards inresponse to technological change and problemsthat arise.

Trade and TrustA second key area is the Osaka track launched atthe G20. This aims to promote ‘free data flowswith trust’ and has been put under the

World Trade Organization (WTO) which is theprimary space for global e-commercediscussions.

The Osaka Track consists of three elements:fostering a common understanding amongnegotiating members; making use of theexpertise on data flow and on the digitaleconomy from other international organisations;and, promoting holistic policy discussions on thedigital economy. As well as the WTO and otherinternational organisations such as theOrganisation of Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD), business is already playingan important part in the discussions, and there isinput from organised labour and civil society intothe Committee of Digital Economy Policy at theOECD. However, for obvious reasons, businesshas far more capacity to engage in shaping these debates that other stakeholders.

Some countries are agreeing open data trade(e.g. US and Japan renewed their cross-borderdata flow agreement by signing a digital tradeagreement stating that “neither party shallprohibit or restrict the cross-border transfer ofinformation, including personal information, by electronic means, if this activity is for theconduct of the business of a covered person”).But other countries are taking a very differentdirection.

The big risk is that decisions are made withoutcareful attention to public acceptability andtherefore unravel. Past arrangements oftenignored the tensions between trade and trust.Recent years have seen big shifts in attitudes todata, with much less acceptance of dataharvesting without consent, and opaqueprocesses of decision-making. A minimum stepwould be to ensure some civic engagement inthese debates – and a clearer vision of whatvalues and vision these new arrangements aremeant to serve.

Short-term Options and Potential Alignments


The more strategic, and difficult, possibilitieslook further out, to a 5-15 year time horizon.The key overall conclusion was that the ways inwhich communications issues have been debatein past decades are no longer fit for purpose.As has happened in other fields – notably theenvironment – the debate needs to be openedup.Here we identified four main avenues toexplore that could contribute to such a shift:

Create a Global Communications ObservatoryThere was wide agreement that the world would benefit from better orchestratingknowledge about communicationsinfrastructures, providing a shared picture ofissues, threats and opportunities, based on deeptechnical expertise. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a useful model, and has hugely influencedintergovernmental processes of negotiation and action around climate change. It couldbecome a model for the GPAI mentioned above.

A parallel body for communications – A GlobalCommunications Observatory (GCO) – would in asimilar way provide regular reports on key trendsand emergent issues. It would use techniquespioneered by the IPCC for large-scale expertparticipation in analysis and assessments. Itwould also provide accessible visualisations ofthe state of networks at many of the key levels ofthe stack. We now take these for granted for theweather but the infrastructures we depend ondeeply are opaque and largely invisible.

Such an observatory would be able to draw onexisting processes. For example, the ITU collectswireless communication requirements for thenext 10 years from each country, then leaves itto 3GPP to work on the detailed standard. After 3GPP finishes the standard, ITU approves

it, and each country builds its next generationwireless network based on the unifiedinternational standard. The proposedObservatory would enable this whole process to become more open, with internationalindustry organisations offering their own 10-20 year predictions, and contributing to asynthetic view of likely scenarios, and ofchallenges that would require multilateralresponses.

Achieving this goal would require engagement of the main telecommunications companies,mobile providers and platforms, sharing relevantdata on network performance and patterns. It could in time become a condition of publiclicenses, and use of spectrum, that they sharekey data on the state of networks.

Such an observatory would be likely to needjoint funding by the main nations involved inglobal communications, with contributions fromthe main businesses (operators, platforms andmanufacturers), so that it could offer a livingpicture of the state and prospects of theinfrastructures on which we all depend. It would act as a meta-observatory – drawingtogether a wide range of existing initiativeswhich provide part of the picture (fromgovernments, academia, consultancies etc).There would clearly be advantage if it could gain a formal status and a duty to report into the G20 and G7.

Such a body would need to be designed in a waythat ensured it had high visibility, including tothe world’s publics (as the IPCC has managed),helping to raise the understanding and literacy of decision-makers (as has happened in relationto carbon emissions).

Longer-term Possibilities


Design Open Protocols to Support Self-governanceThe second key issue we discussed potentiallyprovides important new answers to thechallenges of governance.

Here the key idea is that the underlying designof networks can make them better able towithstand threats and guarantee resilience. This was always part of the logic of the Internetand its TCP/IP protocols. But new technologicaloptions make it possible to take this a stepfurther, building on the many moves towardsmore open source technologies.

Many of the internet’s key protocols weredeveloped in an open and collaborative manner.But the recent centralisation across all layers ofthe stack, has also extended to the protocolsetting stage. Opaque, jargon-heavy processes,driven by those with the highest stakes in thegame and the necessary resources to participatehave meant that many of the internet’s futureinfrastructures are being designed by just ahandful of the most powerful actors. Vestedpowers have few incentives to open up theirprocesses or level the playing field in thisstandard-setting phase, which risks furtherconcentration.

Open, modular, transparent protocols andstandards, which can be consistently updated as new, more secure and effective “buildingblocks” emerge, and to which any member ofthe community can contribute, will ensure buy-in from a larger range of actors, and pre-empt some issues and further harms bydesign.

SCION (Scalability, Control, and Isolation OnNext-Generation Networks) is an example of this kind of approach, designed to enablepackets to be communicated even in thepresence of malicious interventions, that is now being implemented in Switzerland.Governments and other institutional actors can

help support this kind of model throughproviding funding for development andcontinued maintenance, but should alsoconsider creating independent auditing andsupport bodies, which can oversee continuedsecurity and upkeep, and support solutionsdeveloped on top of these protocols – so aidingthe development of a more distributed, openmarketplace.

An example discussed by the group wasinteroperability and data portability. Legislationsuch as the GDPR sets out that companies thatcollect substantial amounts of (personal) dataneed to make this data available to users andallow them to carry it with them, which helpsprevent lock-in and level the playing field. The group agreed that the intention here is theright one, but that the lack of definition of whatdata portability means in practice (in principleeven a PDF with a users’ data could legally already suffice) means that impact will be limited.

This is where a collaborative exercise betweengovernments (as funder, overseer andpotentially also procurer) and the open sourcecommunity in designing not just the legal butalso technical framework for data portability,could be particularly powerful. Neutralgovernance bodies can then be established totest resilience; provide accreditation and audit(which would need to be financed both bygovernments and by the major private sectorplayers). The key however is that importantprinciples, for example on the handling ofpersonal identity, would be designed into thetechnology itself to reduce the need for classicgovernance.

The European Commission is beginning toconsider options of this kind, includingprioritising R&D to develop appropriatetechnology tools, which will need to become at least part of a future approach to ensuring the integrity of networks.


Build on Moves Towards AI GlobalGovernanceThe third broad direction of change which weagreed would be important for this field is theevolution of new governance institutions for AI, which could be used as a platform foraddressing some of the broader issues.

There was widespread agreement that the worldwill need some standards and accreditation ofAI, including for trade, e.g. of driverless cars,drones, or IoT applications of all kinds.

These standards may have to design in rules fortreatments of data and privacy; transparency ofalgorithms; legal duties related to potentialharms.

The EU and US are beginning serious work onthe common standards that might support moreubiquitous Autonomous Vehicle systems – as analternative to a proliferation of competingstandards created by car companies, computercompanies and individual cities. Clearly ifcommon standards can be created – includingstandardised ways of handling insurance,liability, or the division of labour betweenupgraded physical infrastructures (ie smarterroads) on the one hand and smarter vehicles onthe other – this will greatly assist with theviability of AVs.

These decisions will be unavoidably bound upwith public perceptions and ethics.There are some useful parallels with howregulation and law around human fertilityevolved, involving open processes, engagementof ethics, and an iterative approach to decision-making that involved the public. These aimed toembed a version of the golden rule – ‘do untoothers what you would have them to you’ –which will also be vital for future AI governance,since it ensures action to constrain predatory,harmful and exploitative uses of technology. The space industry and the regulation of airlines

provide some useful pointers to how the worldcan create coherent, and strong, systems foraccelerating learning and common standards inadvanced industries.

The Canadian/French initiative which came outof the G7 (and OECD) provides one source ofenergy as does the Osaka Track mentionedearlier.

A Global Communications InfrastructureIntegrity CommissionFinally, we discussed the case for creating newinstitutions with a narrower remit to accreditand certify the integrity of infrastructures. One model is the International Atomic EnergyAgency. Since the 1950s, the IAEA has been theglobal watchdog for the peaceful use of nuclearscience. Acting as an independent organisation,not under the direct control of the UnitedNations, it has worked to ensure the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear science andtechnology.

An equivalent Global CommunicationsInfrastructures Integrity Commission - wouldplay a similar role, assuring that infrastructuresare reliable and don’t have trap doors orbackdoors for security agencies. It would needrights of inspection of software and hardware; a high level of technical expertise; and supportfrom governments and business.

The IAEA carries out inspections of country’snuclear programmes to monitor illicitbehaviour – primarily developing atomic energyfor military use. When IAEA inspectors areprevented from doing their work or expelled, as in North Korea in 2009, the agency uses thebest available technology including open-sourceinformation and satellite imagery to monitoractivities. It then verifies that agreements and commitments are being implemented – as recently with the promises Iran made in 2015.


A new body for communications would need acomparable array of rights and capabilities. In return for opening themselves to inspection,countries and companies would be accredited astrustworthy.

Next StepsThis discussion and paper have mapped out apotential territory for further work involvingmore detail, ideally with a core group of

countries willing to drive forward progress inthese areas.

In some cases it will be possible to designblueprints. But much of this work is bound to be iterative, involving experiment andadaptation, in tandem with rapidly changingtechnologies. One participant reminded us ofthe old saying which is an apposite point to endon: ‘traveller there are no paths; paths are madeby walking’.


Background

On 10 October 2019, The United Kingdom-ChinaGlobal Issues Dialogue Centre at Jesus College,the University of Cambridge hosted a symposiumentitled Digital Economy Governance Dialogue:Multilateral Solutions for Information andCommunications Technology IndustryGovernance. The dialogue was led by ProfessorPeter Williamson, Professor of InternationalManagement at the Cambridge Judge BusinessSchool, Fellow of Jesus College and Chairman ofthe United Kingdom-China Global IssuesDialogue Centre, and his co-host, Dr GeoffMulgan, then Chief Executive of Nesta. Thirty-three participants representing variousdisciplines in academia as well as representativesfrom the private sector and regulatory bodiesdiscussed the challenges presented by thegrowth of the digital economy.

The conference was divided into differentsessions, in each of which three contributorsintroduced a topic for no more than five minutesin a single roundtable. After this introduction, all participants were invited to contribute to the discussion. In addition, during two of thesessions, participants were divided into four,small groups, each group discussing a differentas aspect of digital governance. A summary ofeach group discussion was then shared with therest of the attendees.

Participants identified various challenges aroundthe new information and communicationstechnologies including data, competition andinnovation, cybersecurity and AI. Moreover,Internet companies are global, and users arelocated around the world; consequently, it wouldbe difficult to solve these challenges either atthe national level or through bilateralagreements.

These challenges prompted a debate about theneed for transnational governance. Transnationalgovernance needs to consider differences in thenormative standards accepted by differentcountries and other stakeholders. For example,the British focus on the importance of ensuringchild protection, compared to the ChineseGovernment’s stance on the importance ofensuring social stability by limiting certain typesof information available over platforms.

However, the current geopolitical environment ispoliticised and fragmented. Participants agreedthat effective action needs to be taken, or a crisisof governance and accountability could beprecipitated, threatening free and open trade,easy and reliable communication, data flows and connectivity.

Before proposing further solutions, however, it was agreed that the initial step would be todevelop a deeper understanding of whatgovernance initiatives are already underway and where these were falling short. Theconference then went on to develop initialoptions for global digital governance solutionsand identified some of the actors who might play key roles in addressing them. Manyparticipants agreed that, for action to take place, it is necessary to develop a sense ofurgency, and it was believed that many small and multi-stakeholder forums could provideeffective solutions.

Analysis of Existing GovernanceChallengesIn this first morning session, contributorsdescribed multi-disciplinary challenges in theglobal situation that are affected either bygeopolitical conflict or lack of transparency.

Part II: The Dialogue3

3 Part II of this report was written under Lauterpacht Rules, not directly attributing statements to individual participants by

Carolina Onate Burgos J.D., LL.M is a Chilean Lawyer specialising in Competition Law and Data Protection.


For practical reasons this was divided into twotopics:

(i) multi-disciplinary challenges in subtopicssuch as data (freedom of data flows,privacy, consumer protection), competitionand innovation, cybersecurity, electiontampering, artificial intelligence (AI),Fintech, and child protection;

(ii) inter-governmental challenges embeddedin a geopolitical conflict created bydiffering systems around the world thatoften pull in competing directions (e.g. current policy directions of the UnitedStates, China, Russia).

Maintaining a fertile environment forcompetition and innovation were regarded as anessential challenge by private-sectorstakeholders, while there was wide agreementthat cybersecurity and national security werehighlighted as areas where there was a pressingneed for solutions in the short term.

As one contributor explained, there areasymmetries in power between the largesttechnology companies and leading governmentsthat mean different actors need to be involved,which leads to a lack of transparency in thedecision-making process of creating norms.

The challenge consists in finding a common setof values between different countries whichprioritise values such as domestic stability,national security, individual freedom and privacyin a different order.

Clear rules and ethical considerations must bediscussed to avoid a crisis of governance andaccountability, which could threaten free andopen trade, easy and reliable communication,data flows and connectivity.

Multidisciplinary Challenges

a) Data and privacy across borders

The first set of challenges discussed wereassociated with data. Data is dealt with locallywithin an individual country which has its own

stance and values. These can be generalised as follows:

(i) national data sovereignty for domesticstability in China and Russia;

(ii) national security (as has recently been centre stage in India and Turkey);

(iii) individual freedom in the United States(US) and the European Union (EU);

(iv) privacy and child protection in the United Kingdom (UK).

A problem emerges when data moves acrossborders and each country wants to maintaintheir individual principles and position. Recently,the amount of data and its quality have beencontrolled through location, focusing on wheredata is stored or to where it is permitted orrestricted to travel (data location). A drawbackof restricting data access is that companieswould have to buy data storage space in everycountry in the world before accepting customersfrom those countries. This in turn would create abarrier to entry that would raise the cost foreveryone and/or diminish innovation. The onlyadvantage is that countries such as India andTurkey can build data centres to attract investment.

The challenge, therefore, involves finding abalance. Some contributors advocated forbroader data availability. Representatives fromthe private sector explained that data is whatmakes platforms highly valuable, and a lot of itsvalue is in aggregation rather than the individualdata points. Therefore, this challenge can beaddressed by regulating platforms through theimportance of aggregating data.

b) Competition and innovation

A second set of concerns raised by multiplecontributors concerned the competitionbetween companies, including problems ofmonopoly, of state subsidy, or other forms ofstate interference. These issues were magnifiedby a geopolitical environment in whichgovernments and their citizens were increasinglyconcerned about the potential impacts of new


technologies for the global competitiveness ofindividual countries and their companies,entrepreneurs and economies.

There is an awareness that if competition isblocked in the information and communicationmarket, there will be a cost to consumers, such as a slower roll out of 5G or highertelecoms bills. On the one hand, China monitorscontent and decides what is available to society,because for the Chinese government socialstability presents a higher value thancompetition. Therefore, Google, Facebook and Twitter have been blocked. China has non-western traditional standards on intellectualproperty protection. A contributor explainedthat in the eyes of Xi Jinping, President of thePeople's Republic of China, it is essential forChina to make strides in technology, especially inareas such as AI, to secure pre-eminence forChina’s economy on the global market. On theother hand, the US has blocked some Chinesecompanies, and companies have increasinglyreacted to this by leaving the US to supply non-US technology vendors (for example,Ericsson is moving their 5G manufacturing fromTexas to China).

Contributors proposed that one way to solvethese issues may be to create a competitiveecosystem among the existing vendors. For example, to stimulate competitors, all intellectual property associated with 5G has been made freely available by the CEO ofHuawei, making this a fruitful time to be aEuropean technology company working on these issues.

A key challenge when talking about regulation isto ensure that there is still an environment forinnovation at a local level. Contributors agreedthat unnecessary regulation could create abarrier to entry and prevents small start-upsfrom competing. Therefore, regulation shouldapply only in particularly critical domains.However, another contributor added thatregulation can help innovation rather thanhinder it.

c) Other challenges such as AI, cross-border cyberattacks, interference in democraticelections and child protection

A third set of challenges were associated with amiscellaneous set of subtopics related totechnology, which although more specific than questions of overall globalgovernance, participants felt warranteddiscussion.

Regarding AI, the decision-making process,responsibility and accountability were identifiedas the main issues. For example, in the case ofautonomous vehicles in the US, definedparameters are required to determine questionssuch as who should bear responsibility in crashesand which forms of licensing would be required.Another example from the US are drones thatcan use big data to make a decision as towhether to take the life of a human being:should humans be liable for this?

Following on from this subject, a centralquestion animated the discussion: is AI a uniqueissue and does it therefore require differentregulation to other technologies? Contributorsadvanced the idea of learning lessons fromtelecommunications not to overregulate AIbecause future investment could be affected.However, more risk-averse approaches toalgorithms and AI may be necessary given thepotentially far-reaching and risky impacts of thistechnology, such as algorithms being in controlof immediate response mechanisms for missilebatteries (for example on China’s Fujian coast).

Regarding child protection, some contributorssuggested that legislators in the UK were leadingthe way in regulating the protection of childrenwhen interacting with AI online, far ahead ofother western countries, but this is a challengethat should be tackled on a global scale.

Regarding cybercrime, contributors unanimouslyagreed that cyberspace presents an environmentof potential conflict, confrontation and attacks,creating new challenges in security forcompanies and states. There was no overall


agreement about the grade of threat that theworld is facing at the moment; however, onecontributor stated that ‘if these things werekinetic, we could consider ourselves in a state ofwar’. Another softened this and explained thatthe code to maintain infrastructure was very oldand weakness in the system could leavecountries open to cyberattacks.

Inter-governmental Challenges Inter-governmental challenges are createdbecause Internet companies are global and usersare distributed in specific locations around theworld. At the same time, normative stances andvalues vary within different systems and oftenpull in opposing directions.

Representatives from the private sectorexplained this point further, stating that there istechnological and jurisdictional asymmetry inthe regulation of the digital landscape. Mostregulations are local, rather than global. MostInternet and social media services have arenationally rooted even if they now have almostglobal reach. As a result, they tend to begoverned by a “home” jurisdiction. For example, Facebook in the US, We Chat in China, Daily Motion in France. It is true that someadjustments can be made when looking at thelocation of the user, for example with intellectualproperty and Netflix, but this has not been thegeneral rule.

As one contributor explained, this asymmetryleads to tensions between privacy, security,human rights, intellectual property and trade.The largest existing tension today is betweentrade and security. Another contributor statedthat the US-China political conflict regarding thesecurity risk of 5G could be an opportunity forserious regulatory reform. After a briefdiscussion, contributors concluded that USgovernments, political parties and presidentshave leaned towards a more aggressive stance intheir policy towards China. However, these sameparty members and leaders also hold similarviews towards, and share suspicions concerningSilicon Valley.

There is no uniform view of the degree oftension. For some contributors there is clear geopolitical conflict, also called the‘polarisation of technology’. In fact it wasmooted that there could potentially be a new‘cold war’ in five years’ time, not just because oftrade, but also in view of the prospect ofdecoupling between the US and China in foreigndirect investment (FDI) and capital markets andthrough to tech disengagement.

The challenge, according to participants, is to build a global governance system thatembodies multi-national rules and standards,while still being informed by national values thatarise from the demands and priorities of localcommunities, nation states and nationalideologies. This could then be implementedsuccessfully in the global marketplace.


Some of the rules are extremely local and notintended for the international market. Therefore,when the rules have a trans-border effect thereare challenges and complications. The typologyof governance will depend on the character ofthe technology itself, the political context, and who are the rule makers and who are therule takers.

Before proposing further solutions, however, it was agreed that the initial step would be toobtain a deeper understanding of whatgovernance initiatives are already underway andwhere these were falling short. The group thenwent on to develop initial options for globaldigital governance solutions and identified someof the actors who might play key roles inaddressing them.

Contributors analysed different international andregional initiatives including formal organisationssuch as the United Nations (UN), theInternational Telecommunication Union (ITU),the European Union (EU), the G20, Organisationfor Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) treaties, as well as standards bodies such as the European TelecommunicationsStandards Institute (ETSI), Global Commission on Internet Governance and the GlobalCommission on the Stability of Cyberspace(GCSC). This discussion also included theInternational Competition Network (ICN) andIndustry-led initiatives.

Many participants agreed that for action to takeplace it is necessary to develop a sense ofurgency, and it was believed that having a largenumber of small and multi-stakeholder forumscould provide effective solutions.

United Nations The UN is an international organisation foundedin 1945. It is currently made up of 193 MemberStates.4 Some contributors considered that theUN could be a forum for new forms ofgovernance. There are already three initiativesregarding this topic:

(i) Opening Groups on Cybersecurity,including some private sector involvement;

(ii) the UN Global Compact adopted on 12August 2005, which is dedicated to working directly with the private sector;

(iii) the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation, established in July 2018; its report ‘The age of digitalinterdependence’5 was published in June2019. These initiatives show that memberstates can turn these discussions intoagreements.

However, as one contributor argued, it isimportant not to let Russia take over the UN’sprocesses and exert its influence, blocking non-governmental experts. If Russianinterference cannot be prevented, geopoliticalanimosity could block any agreement.

A few contributors were categorical in sayingthat a UN approach (or another similarmultilateral approach) will not working becauseby the time these institutions reach a decision, itis often too late, considering that the pace ofchange is now so rapid.

The International Telecommunication UnionThe International Telecommunication Union(ITU) (founded in 1865) is the UN’s specialisedagency for information and communicationtechnologies (ICTs), which allocates global radio

Typology of Governance Responses and theEmerging Initiatives in Response to theGovernance Challenges

4 https://www.un.org/en/about-un/

5 https://digitalcooperation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/DigitalCooperation-report-web-FINAL-1.pdf


spectrum and satellite orbits and develops thetechnical standards that ensure networks andtechnologies interconnect seamlessly.6

Alongside its recommendations, it issuesmandatory International TelecommunicationRegulations (ITRs).

Contributors explained that the radio frequencyspectrum is a resource still managed bygovernments by means of treaties, to ensureactive participation and proper allocation ofpermits.

Despite this, the ITU brings together privatesector actors, academics, member states andinternational and regional organisations.Contributors stated that this forum can dealefficiently with technical issues; however, they had some doubts regarding its capability to deal with ethical concerns.

The European UnionThe European Union is an economic and politicalunion of 28 member states. A couple ofcontributors argued that the EU can set a basicstandard for the rest of the global community, as it did with the General Data ProtectionRegulation (GDPR). Europe could lead the way inencouraging the US upgrade to its governancestandards, followed by large parts of Africa andLatin America, along with some parts of Asia.However, other contributors doubted that thiswould happen in practice, pointing out that (i) the EU is often still reactive in these areas; (ii) the US often has profoundly different beliefsand approaches; (iii) historical precedent is notencouraging: in the case of The Convention onCybercrime of the Council of Europe (also knownas the Budapest Convention in 2001), forexample, the EU had the support of memberstates but other countries did not follow suit.

G20 The G20 Summit (formed in 1999) is formallyknown as the ‘Summit on Financial Markets and

the World Economy’ and the participants are theleaders of 19 countries and the EuropeanUnion.7 Some contributors considered that theG20 can achieve consensus in areas of globaleconomic governance for two reasons: (i) the number of members is lower than theUN’s 193 member states; (ii) there have alreadybeen agreements to some binding AI principles;(iii) the G20 includes relevant actors that havediffering views and opinions such as China, Indiaand Russia. However, to work more effectively,the G20 might need to create a propersecretariat.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)The OECD is an international organisationestablished in 1961 that works together withgovernments, policy makers and citizens.8

The OECD can bring about agreements throughits Development Committee, in which Europeand the US work together.

TreatiesCanada and France are calling for the creation of a new International Panel on ArtificialIntelligence (IPAI) as a multi-stakeholderinternational study group. Although currentlyonly France and Canada are involved, the will isthere, and it is at least a starting point forunderstanding and sharing research results on AI in human rights, inclusion, diversity,innovation and economic growth. The goal is tonarrow the gap in technological and policydevelopment, and through such bilateralcollaboration IPAI is proof of a promisingwindow of opportunity.

Bilateral agreements are types of globalgovernance that have worked for areas such aslaw enforcement and privacy, for example, theUK-US agreement signed on 3 October 2019under the ‘Cloud Agreement’ on Cross-BorderData Access Agreement to Combat Criminals and Terrorists Online.

6 https://www.itu.int/en/about/Pages/default.aspx

7 https://g20.org/en/summit/about/

8 http://www.oecd.org/about/


European Telecommunications StandardsInstitute (ETSI)ETSI is a European Standards Organisation (ESO) created in 1988 that dealstelecommunications, broadcasting and otherelectronic communications networks andservices.9 When ETSI emerged, Europeanstandards started to take prominence overnational standards, so it is possible for the EU toset standards that national regulators need toimplement.

In 1991, ETSI developed The Global System forMobile Communications (GSM), a second-generation digital cellular radio accesstechnology for Europe that became a worldwide success and is still operatingtoday.10 GSM started in Finland, was lateradopted by the US and China and becameprofitable worldwide. Something similar couldbe replicated in future for the information andcommunication industry.

One limitation could be the absence of a bigplayer, such as Russia. This can be overcome byencouraging Russia to participate more activelyin standards setting, as previously occurred withThe European Conference of Postal andTelecommunications Administrations (CEPT).

Whilst ETSI defines the technical standards for‘how’ data should be transmitted to lawenforcement agencies it is not their remit todefine a standard for “when” data should orshould not be transmitted.

Global Commission on Internet GovernanceThe Global Commission on Internet Governanceis an initiative launched at the World EconomicForum in January 2014 to articulate and advancea strategic vision for the future of internetgovernance.11 The commission is sponsored bythe Netherlands and includes stakeholders from the private sector, government and

academia. The idea is to develop a framework ofcommitments, that countries could sign up to:for example to ensure that no state agents areable to disrupt the technical infrastructure ofelections or referendums.

The Global Commission on the Stability ofCyberspace (GCSC)The Global Commission on the Stability ofCyberspace (GCSC) is helping to promote mutualawareness and understanding among the variouscyberspace communities working on issuesrelated to international cybersecurity,12 andfocusing on consistency of policy and normsrelating to the security and stability in and ofcyberspace. One contributor stated that thiscommission has come up with a series of normsand is looking at organisations to be championsin setting norms. This forum presents anopportunity to discuss future governancemodels.

An advantage of the GCSC is that it represents a wide range of geographic regions as well asgovernment, industry, technical and civil societystakeholders with the legitimacy to speak ondifferent aspects of cyberspace. A secondadvantage is that it will be linked to existinginitiatives, such as the Global Commission onInternet Governance and the London Process,through special representatives.

The International Competition Network (ICN)The ICN provides competition authorities with an informal venue for addressing practicalcompetition concerns.13 One contributorexplained that this network might also be able toprovide a useful foundation for the developmentof a much more comprehensive approach todeal with the problem of how to adaptcompetition and consumer law to deal withdigital platforms. To some degree, if majorcompetition authorities (such the EuropeanUnion, the US and China) were willing to adopt

9 https://www.etsi.org/about

10 https://www.etsi.org/technologies/mobile/2g

11 https://www.chathamhouse.org/about/structure/international-security-department/global-commission-internet-governance-

project

12 https://cyberstability.org/about/

13 https://www.internationalcompetitionnetwork.org/about/


a similar approach, then this would have anenormous positive impact.

Industry-led InitiativesSome contributors promoted the idea of relianceon corporate regulation along with nationalregulation to govern digital platforms.

The Open Data Initiative from Microsoft providesa platform for a single, comprehensive view ofdata, bringing together and enriching data fromall lines of business, across all systems, to deliver real-time intelligence back to applications andservices.14

One contributor explained that Huawei have embarked on something similar, afterhaving analysed gaps in global standards andpolicy. An example of this is a $2 billion, five-year Global Transformation Programme to become a leader in safe software engineering.

Another positive experience comes from China,where dialogue was opened between thegovernment and Alibaba. The governmentinitially sought to collect taxes, but a laterdialogue with Alibaba identified anotherrelevant value to protect, that of ‘job creation’.This was seen as more important than taxcollection and was therefore prioritised.Similarly, other initiatives in areas such as childsafety and counterterrorism have emerged indialogues between industry and government.

Short-term OptionsThe group set out a range of potential responsesthat could be implemented over the next 2-3years, suggesting that, rather than designingnew structures or institutions, there is a need tofocus on problems that require solving such asgeopolitical conflict and lack of transparency.Contributors agreed that at this point no singleforum alone can deal with technologicalgovernance.

The first proposal consisted of dividing updifferent issues into much smaller slices anddealing with them separately – the smaller theproblem, the better the prospect of progress.This style of formulation can help to setpriorities, and although there will beinconsistencies and fragmentation at thebeginning, agreed norms can then movetowards homogenisation with a formal,multilateral action.

The second proposal consisted of enhancinginstitutions that already exist, rather than tryingto create new ones, by promoting small anddiverse discussion groups that can bring forthinnovative and creative solutions.

One contributor noted that all these solutionsmight overlap and represent a much deeperconsensus and agreement moving forward, with one particular strand moving towardsimplementation: ‘This is like innovation, younever know which one is going to kick off.’

Enhance Institutions that Already ExistContributors agreed on sending a strongmessage regarding the importance of bolsteringinstitutions as opposed to attempting to createnew ones. The opinions of participants weredivided on which would be the best group totake on this task. The UN and EU saw someopposition for potentially being susceptible toRussian influence and for having a lack ofrepresentativeness, while the G20, OECD andnewly created groups received more support.

After a brief discussion it was agreed thatsolutions cannot be solely be placed in thehands of the US and Europe, because theirimpacts are felt both in emerging countries andin the developed world. Powerful countries inthe past presented a good method of globalgovernance that later spread around the worldbecause technology was only accessible to largenation states who committed first to treaties,but this paradigm has changed. However,

14 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/open-data-initiative


a centralised world where networks createnodes of political and economic power no longerexists in the same way, and these networks areincreasingly shifting to a new distributed anddecentralised world, where China and globalcompanies can play a key leadership role alongwith other actors.

When focusing on the strengthening of currentinstitutions rather than the creation of newones, these organisations need to emphasisefeatures such as smaller groups that include adiverse group of people, with contributions fromprivate companies, data experts, academia, civilsociety and journalism.

One contributor was emphatic in proposing theidea that this group should be small. A smallgroup of stakeholders can help to analyse ifthere is enough common interest to promoteany form of collective understanding on theseissues. If an increasing number of stakeholdersare included, the group’s efficiency woulddiminish.

Facilitate Small and Diverse Discussion GroupsHow different groups are adequatelyrepresented in discussions about globalgovernance is one of the hardest problems toovercome in this debate.

a) The Government

For some contributors, governments have aresponsibility to respond to the negative side ofthe Internet. However, the people makingdecisions often lack an understanding of thetechnology and base their judgements purely onperceived political considerations. It seems thatvery few know how AI should best be handledwithin the policy community (the umbrella oftenencompasses everything from 5G to IOT). Manycontributors explained that politicians need tobecome adequately informed of either thetechnical or ethical challenges and opportunities.

There is therefore a need to develop capacityand technological understanding amongdiplomats, government officials and politicians

through training and knowledge sharing. Given that there may be some resistance amongmore senior politicians to engage with theseissues and recognise the limits of theirunderstanding, one contributor proposedfocusing on young people who are more openand accepting of change.

Another model proposed was to use onegovernment to build communications, in particular for the UK to build acommunications bridge between China andAmerica. As one contributor argued, the UKcould become a data container and a developerof solutions and certifications. The US and China could therefore benefit from this externalsource.

b) Companies

Some of the contributors stated that politicaltensions should not distract from lack oftransparency as the main problem facing globalgovernance. It is important to consider everytechnical proposal carefully and make it availableon an open-access website, so the world at largecan be informed of what exactly is taking place.

The entrepreneurial sector itself can then help toconsider whether the market will want to followa particular standard. Products are beingconstructed, especially in mobile communicationand roaming, and to some extent in 5G, that useinternational standards irrespective of theirorigin.

c) Other Potential Participants

Some companies – and countries – also havedisproportionate power in establishing theagenda for what standards should be set.Instead, these standards and solutions should be multi-layered and give equal weight to allstakeholders. In other words, involving onlynations and companies is not enough.Governments representing their own interestsdo not have their own internal technicalcapability. Companies do not represent citizens,consumers, parents or children. Before anystandards are defined, it is therefore necessaryto build an ecosystem in which private entities


can participate and invest money in researchand see how the markets behave, whileconsidering the impact on people’s lives.

An observatory platform can support discussionsand offer some solutions. This conference waswidely praised as a first step, because it enabledconversations to take place in a neutral space by allowing participation with a degree ofprotection from regulator intervention, IP consideration and political interference.

Citizens, and journalists in particular, can uncover the negative externalities of newtechnologies. As several contributors noted, thereturn on investment of the social and financialbenefit in uncovering these negatives isenormous. Monetary benefits often return tothe government and not to the civil society, as occurred with the Panama papers, therefore,a better solution would provide better incentivesand returns to the civil society. For example, this could mean creating a similar model to theACC in the US, where a whistle-blower could get20% of the money as return. Academia can alsoplay an important role in clarifying the issues,defining priorities and proposing solutionsregarding AI and big data.

Underinvestment in Experts and Diversity The current system, however, is underinvestedand there are too few experts and limiteddiversity. There was agreement amongparticipants from a think tank, IOs and academiathat it is necessary to create a group withdiversity in terms of countries and people(professions, ethnicity, and gender) represented,and to engage civil society to a much largerdegree to find international solutions. Someconcerns were raised due to the inaccessibilityof such debates for some stakeholders becauseof its expense and also because the incentivesare sometimes unclear.

Contributors proposed making it easier forpeople to participate, educating stakeholders,offering resources and including groups such asthe civil society. Another contributor explainedthat there are already initiatives on this.

The Netherlands and the UK have jointly fundedan initiative through the Global Forum on CyberExpertise (GDFC) to increase the representationof women from developing countries in thesedebates.

There is an opportunity to change incentives andcreate pressure for politicians and companiesthrough pressure from both their voters andconsumers. The contributors noted that in Asiathere is a great focus on peer pressure toenhance good practice and that this could bereplicated in other parts of the world, throughcreating and publicising rankings and socialhierarchies.

The Necessity of UrgencyThe digital economy, technological capabilitiesand the rapid pace of development of digitaltechnologies are transforming both economiesand societies. Current systems of governanceoften cannot keep up and there is a clearabsence of any coordinated approach.Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal showspeople are often observing the ‘car crash’ after ithas already occurred, rather than noticing therisk building up right before.

For some contributors, the need to regulate isbecoming urgent, as all aspects of governanceare lagging behind advancements in technology.Others believe that the systems will respond astechnology changes, but whenever a standard isset, people will try to work around it, creating aconstant race between private actors andregulators. For example, blockchain started as acrypto currency to take away the power of thecentral banks, but now central banks are lookingat crypto currencies to avoid economicsanctions.

Although it may not be advisable to move aheadwith regulation that anticipates futuredevelopments, this may be hard to avoidbecause of the unpredictable nature oftechnological development. Moreover, the speed of innovation is currently so fast thatregulation may not be responsive enough.Therefore, at the moment digital creation comes


first and then the government has to respondand try to come up with rules.

Participants representing the private sectorremarked that a clearer definition of normativestances and values is needed. Otherwise, a crisisof governance and accountability could beprecipitated, threatening free and open trade,easy and reliable communication, data flows andconnectivity. However, it seems that just in theaftermath of such crises it is possible to reach anagreement, although the dominant actors willthen set the standards, resulting in otherstakeholders’ participation being limited.Therefore, participants were supportive of theidea that creating a sense of immediacy andurgency would be advantageous in order toreach agreement on core values without losingrepresentation.

Finding a Common GroundAttendees stated that it is possible to achieve adegree of consensus if a core value is definedfirst. The ethical debate on many of thequestions that might illuminate the emergenceof social norms, and provide a platform forgovernment policy, law and regulation, isrudimentary at best. There are also doublestandards across jurisdictions that need to beaddressed on an ethical level. For example,Apple removed the Hong Kong iMap from theHong Kong App store; this map had allowedprotesters in the current anti-governmentuprising to track on-call police movements.However, the map remained in the UK App store.

It was explained that the core values must bebased on structures of trust at any level ofgovernance. Contributors went on to define corevalue with the analogy that the right to life is afundamental right (the core value), althoughthere can be some disagreement on subjectssuch as capital punishment and abortion.

One contributor explained that in relation to AIthere are three different groups, the West, theEast and the Catholic South, that consider astheir core values dignity, responsibility,externality and autonomy. Another contributoragreed, but added that safe communications

between citizens, privacy and protection fromcyber-attacks are also of core significance.

However, why not use Chinese values forEurope? Some contributors supported this idea,showing that China has moved forward with thefuture of internet governance, particularly withreference to Alibaba and the Chinese onlinepayment system. One contributor explainedthat, in China, businesses see themselves as partof a larger system while in Western culturesbusinesses often see themselves as separateentities in conflict with the government.However, other contributors disagreed, as some of China’s core value approachescontradict Western values, in particularregarding human rights.

One contributor proposed starting to build acommonality of values by focusing first on non-controversial issues such as scientificengineering in areas in which agreement isfeasible (5G for example), even if these issuescan then be tied to complex problems whentranslated back to the national level. At a laterstage, there can be no reconciliation of valuedifferences (as can be seen in encryptionmodels). This approach has been useful in thepast, such as in genetics and embryology wherethere are few international laws but importantnorms. As yet, it is not clear if it would beconvenient to apply the same principles to thegovernance of AI and new technologies.

Longer-term possibilitiesThe group then looked at longer-term options inthe 5-15-year time horizon.

There is a need for more innovative and creativesolutions, while successful past experience cangive guidance in what practices to adopt to reach common ground. Government and privatecompanies are already highly networked and the infrastructure is already installed; therefore,retrofitting will take time.

Several times during the conference, there was a call to learn lessons from other technologies,particularly in the field of space exploration.


The first goal of any new body is to developtrust.

There are many initiatives and debates alreadyunderway within this broad space, some ofwhich could, in time, increase both the politicalwill for action and other improved options.Standards bodies for internet regulation alreadyexist (as was covered in the morning session).Two international processes can have impact inthe longer term: the Global Commission onInternet Governance and the Global Commissionon the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC).

In the implementation process, flexibility isimportant in this fast-moving world oftechnology. It is necessary to set outresponsibilities clearly, without affectinginnovation. Therefore, rather than focusing onlaw and regulation, it may be much moreeffective to focus on confidence building,knowledge sharing and accepted values andnormative approaches. Where wholecommunities agree about a certain type ofbehaviour, such as using AI for traffic control forexample, the relevant laws can then be createdand used to set up guidelines that can beadapted according to the prevailing conditions.

Successful Examples in other technologiesOne contributor also noted that it would begood idea to examine digital economics researchover the past 25 years, to establish whether theresearch will have had a positive impact, to learnfrom regulatory mistakes (made previously inthe telecommunications sector) and to ensurethat these issues are not made worse in thefuture.

A continuing theme during the conference wasthe need to learn lessons from other types oftechnologies, to show that other governancemodels operating in different domains may beinstructive. Therefore, the contributorsconsidered that an equivalent body can work in

the information and communication industry.Examples of these bodies are the following:

● The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is aninternational body that monitors and makesrecommendations about the global financialsystem by coordinating national financialauthorities and international standard-settingbodies.15 This can be replicated with opendata like metadata;

● The International Energy Agency (IEA) was initially designed to help countries co-ordinate a collective response to majordisruptions in the supply of oil, such as thecrisis of 1973-4;

● In the UK, embryology is a good example, asthere is no international treaty governing itand we are seeing an unregulated ‘Wild West’in various countries. The UK Report from theCommittee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisationand Embryology, commonly called theWarnock Report, of 1984 includes theparticipation of experts, the public and UKparliament to come up with a set of standards for other countries to adhere to.16

Similar examples in the US include US statesand companies’ commitments to climatechange and the American Traffic SafetyServices Association; the Australia-NewZealand Counter-Terrorism Committee whichworks to set rules for blocking access todomains hosting terrorist and abhorrentviolent material. Working in conjunction with the industry, governments can manage a crisis by quickly blocking access during anattack;

● The European Space Agency’s rules tomanoeuvre satellites to prevent thethousands of satellites now being put intoorbit by companies such as Space-X satellitecrashing into existing satellites.

Additionally, these bodies share a strongexpertise and can work in a monitoring capacityin the validation or certification of data or

15 https://www.fsb.org/about/

16 https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/report-committee-inquiry-human-fertilisation-and-embryology-1984-mary-warnock-and-

committee


communication infrastructure to help avoidabuse and misuse.

Global Governance and TrustThe communications infrastructure is a valuableshared resource which has remarkably rapidlybecome embedded in every aspect of daily life.This is about to be amplified in its capability bythe likes of AI and IOT, which in turn alsoincreases the risks of predation, exploitation and attack. Building trust, reliability and safetyinto that infrastructure is a large and sharedglobal task.

The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told anaudience at the World Economic Forum in Davosthat it was time to ‘rebuild trust’ in global trade.Contributors agreed that it is paramount to re-establish trust in a market environment wherethere is great suspicion and rampant exploitationfrom companies.

Permission-less innovation in many cases has ledto permission-less exploitation. There is littledoubt that technology advances are heavilydriven by massive commercial investment, and therefore standards are promoted by theindustry for their own benefit. These standardscover issues like how to operate in themarketplace and how companies deal withcyber-security issues. This happens at the sametime as nations states find themselves in a wildscramble to catch up with the governing ofcyberspace.

There are two main factors holding back thenecessary trust: (i) industrial era-based policies:economic policies are constructed around theconcept of finite capital assets and we are tryingto apply them in a world where there are infinitecapital assets; (ii) government agencies arebased on management concepts that wereapplied to companies that the agencies werecreated to regulate in the first place.

For businesses there is a very strong case foragreeing on common standards. This could beachieved by means of:

● Voluntary, market-based approaches, where industries such as the automotive andbanking industry have strong interest infacilitating new solutions. Agreeing a commonstandard for the car industry, for example,would mean that goods can be sold acrossnational borders;

● Government incentives used to encouragebusiness initiatives to tackle issues liketerrorism, the abolition of child slavery andthe dark web.

Interoperability/data portability. If Facebookopen up their data (as per Cambridge Analytica)for anyone to use, then that can have seriousconsequences; there are therefore many trustissues.

Civil society requires the agreement of certainstandards. Facebook and the media areprocessing information through their algorithmsand this has a couple of consequences: first, nobody knows what information goes inand what comes out, and second, everybodydoes not receive the same news andinformation, and sometimes this can excludeaffected people. This is different to howtraditional media works; if a newspaperpublishes a story it makes an editorial judgement based on evidence explained in thereport, which is published and accessible to all.

Contributors proposed establishing a procedureusing an open Application ProgrammingInterface (API) that can show what’s coming inand going out. This will allow for the protectionof privacy. A third party can then build their ownpublic interest algorithm, take a look at theconsequences of what goes in and what comesout and can draw their own conclusions basedon those considerations.

The implementationIf a new body is to be created, then it needs tobe flexible with a capacity to evolve. It must alsoremain experimental and include publicengagement from the start. To maintain andensure its independence and resilience this body


would need funding from a source like theEuropean Commission.

In the near future, big data is going to introducea new form of governance. A recent forum on AI detailed what was referred to as ‘distributedparticipatory democracy’, where every citizen ofa future democracy can have a personal vote onany issue (from how to construct a new bridge toa declaration of war on another country). This complex task would not be undertaken by the individual, but by AI, which would knowthe individual’s political predisposition.

Contributors stated that the way to implementstandards effectively would involve creatingthem in a commercially rational fashion toattract investment and with transparency andparticipation from civil society in the decision-making process.

Protocols can be used to set standards, ratherthan top-down regulation of companies. Theyare mentioned by the GDPR, and the EuropeanCommission has been pushing to mandateprotocols for platforms.

An independent body could audit the protocollayer and interoperability of data, and set anopen source standard as to how interoperabilityand data portability should work that coversonline identity systems.

Concluding CommentsThe Fourth Industrial Revolution is progressingat a great pace in the developing and emergingworld and applies to a range of aspects of lifefrom trade to AI.

Contributors described multi-disciplinarychallenges in different areas such as data,competition, innovation and cybersecurity. They explained that when local rules have a

trans-border effect, challenges andcomplications arise. Currently, there is ageopolitical conflict created by differing systemsaround the world that often pull in competingdirections (the US, China, Russia), particular intensions between privacy, security, intellectualproperty and human rights.

The contributors in general started off quitepessimistic about the scale of the challengesfaced. However, throughout the symposium, this pessimism was tempered through realismand a move toward more practical solutions.

Contributors analysed different international and regional initiatives, ranging from the UN tostandard-setting bodies and concluded that thiscan be helpful in a short-term basis if theycomply with some features such as thefollowing:

● Embody multi-national rules and standards,while still being informed by national valuesthat arise from the demands and priorities oflocal communities, nation states and nationalideologies, that can be implementedsuccessfully in the global marketplace;

● Develop a common core/value in which allthe players that have an interest can createagreement and cooperation;

● Accept that no single forum can deal withthese global challenges alone;

● Empower small and diverse groups to take onthe challenges collectively;

● create a sense of urgency to reachagreement.

In the long term, values should be agreed, and trust built. If international bodies are to becreated, they should be flexible and inclusive,representing a range of perspectives fromcompanies to civil society.


RICHARD ALLANDirector of Policy, Facebook Europe

Lord Richard Allan joined Facebook in June 2009 to lead thecompany’s public policy work in Europe, Middle East and Africa. In March 2018, he moved to a new role developing solutions acrossa portfolio of global policy issues. Richard’s current focus areasinclude the conduct of politics online, the digital economy,messenger services, and global connectivity. Prior to joiningFacebook, Richard was European Government Affairs Director forCisco Systems from September 2005. He has also been anacademic visitor at the Oxford Internet Institute. From 2008 to2009 Richard was Chair of the UK Cabinet Office’s Power ofInformation Task Force working on improving the use ofgovernment data. Richard was an elected Member of the UKParliament between 1997 and 2005, and was appointed to the

House of Lords in 2010. In the early part of his career Richard was an archaeologist and createdsoftware for the UK’s National Health Service – he remains equally fond of Latin and SQL.

ALESSANDRO ARDUINOCo-Director, Security & Crisis Management International Centre, Shanghai Academy ofSocial Sciences

Dr Alessandro Arduino is the co-director of the Security & CrisisManagement International Centre at the Shanghai Academy ofSocial Science (SASS-POLITO) and external affiliate at the Lau ChinaInstitute, King’s College London. Dr Arduino two decades ofexperience in China encompasses risk analysis and crisismanagement. His main research interests include, Belt & RoadInitiative security, private military security companies, sovereignwealth funds, China’s political economy in Central Asia and theMENA region. He is the author of several books and he haspublished papers and commentaries in various journals in Italian,English and Chinese languages. Dr Arduino consults severalorganizations on security, risk assessment and mitigation includingUNDP, EBRD and AIG. His latest books are: Securing the Belt and

Road Initiative (Palgrave 2018) – China’s Private Army. Protecting the New Silk Road (Palgrave 2017).He has been appointed Knight of the Order of the Italian Star by the President of the ItalianRepublic.

Part III: Participant Biographies


AzEEM AzHARChief Editor, Exponential View

Azeem Azhar is a strategist, analyst, and investor. Azeem is on theboard of the Ada Lovelace Foundation, is a venture partner atKindred Capital and an advisor to Fabric Ventures. He is a memberof the World Economic Forum’s Global Future’s Council on theDigital Economy and Society and co-curates, CogX, Europe’s largestfestival of AI and emerging technologies. Through his widelypraised newsletter, ExponentialView, he brings a uniquebackground to explain the intersection of breakthroughtechnologies and the economies and societies in which we live.Subscribers include investors, academics, and journalists aroundthe world. Azeem has been an award-winning entrepreneur and an investor in many technology startups, especially in the ArtificialIntelligence sector and speaks regularly on television and radio

(BBC, Sky, CNN amongst others) and is a worldwide speaker.

KATJA BEGOPrincipal Researcher, National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts

Katja Bego is a principal researcher and data scientist in Nesta’stechnology futures team. Her work focuses on studying the impactof emerging technologies such as AI on our societies, and howthese new innovations can be harnessed for social good and forthe benefit of everyone. Katja is the coordinator of the EuropeanCommission-funded NGI Forward project, tasked with helpingshape the strategy and policy agenda of the Next GenerationInternet initiative, the EU’s ambitious new flagship programmewhich seeks to build a more democratic, inclusive and resilientfuture internet by 2025, and previously also led the EU Engineroomproject, also under the NGI umbrella. She regularly comments ontopics relating to the future internet in outlets such as Wired, the BBC, Financial Times and The Guardian. Before joining Nesta,

Katja worked as a data scientist in the private sector and as a researcher at the MIT Media Lab. She has a degree in economics and political science from Wellesley College in the US.


EYAL BENVENISTIProfessor of Law, the University of Cambridge

Professor Eyal Benvenisti is the Whewell Professor of InternationalLaw at the University of Cambridge, and the Director of theLauterpacht Centre for International Law. He is also CC Ng Fallow inLaw at Jesus College and Visiting Professor of Law at The HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem and Global Visiting Professor at New YorkUniversity School of Law. Benvenisti’s areas of research andteaching are international law, constitutional law and administrativelaw. He is Member of the Institut de Droit International and of theIsraeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He is a Co-Editor of theBritish Yearbook of International Law, and was on the EditorialBoard of the American Journal of International Law (2009-18). He was Project Director for the “GlobalTrust – Sovereigns asTrustees of Humanity” research project, funded by an ERC

Advanced Grant (2013-18). He was Visiting Professor at Yale, Harvard, Toronto, Columbia,Pennsylvania, Michigan, gave special courses at The Hague Academy of International Law (2013) andthe Xiamen Academy of International Law (2017). Significant publications include: Between

Fragmentation and Democracy: The Role of National and International Courts (Cambridge UniversityPress, 2017, with George W. Downs); The Law of Global Governance (The Hague Academy ofInternational Law “pocket book” series, 2014); EJIL Foreword: Upholding Democracy amid the

Challenges of New Technology: What Role for the Law of Global Governance?, 29 European J. Int’l L.9 (2018); Sovereigns as Trustees of Humanity: On the Accountability of States to Foreign

Stakeholders, 107 American Journal of International Law 295 (2013).

ANDREW CAINEY Associate, Chatham House

Mr Andrew Cainey is an experienced advisor on China and theopportunities and challenges that China offers for foreigncompanies and governments, combining both commercial andpolicy/political perspectives. He first visited China in 1981 and haslived for most of the past twenty years in China, Korea andSingapore. He now splits his time between the UK and Asia. He is Co-Founder of Asiability Ltd, an advisory firm; an AssociateFellow in Chatham House’s Asia-Pacific Programme; and a SeniorFellow in the International Centre (Security and CrisisManagement) of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. He is afrequent writer and speaker on China’s Belt and Road Initiative; its integration into the global economy; and the implications forinternational economic governance. Mr Cainey was previously the

managing partner of Booz & Company’s Greater China consulting business; the partner leading theRt Hon Tony Blair’s Asian government advisory practice; and the partner in charge of BostonConsulting Group’s Asian financial institutions practice. He was also a Senior Fellow, researchingChinese finance, in the Fung Global Institute, a Hong Kong-based think tank and a Founding Fellowat the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance. Mr Cainey has an First Class MA (Hons) inEconomics from Clare College, Cambridge; an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School;and is proficient in Mandarin Chinese.


FRANÇOIS CANDELONSenior Partner and Managing Director, Boston Consulting Group, Shanghai

François Candelon has over 26 years of service at BCG. Since 2012,he has been working with the most advanced technologycompanies based out of BCG’s Shanghai office. He is now alsopartially based in Europe where he leads BCG GAMMA, the DataScience and AI arm of BCG, for BCG’s Technology, Media, &Telecomommunications clients. As a Fellow with the BCGHenderson Institute, BCG’s global think tank, François focuses hisresearch on the impact technology will have on society and itsimplications on geopolitics, national competitiveness, and socialstability. François is a frequent speaker on these themes, includinggiving a TED talk, and has contributed numerous articles on thetopic, including in outlets such as the Harvard Business Review andMIT Sloan Management Review. François received his predoctorate

degree in industrial economy while a research assistant for CERNA (Centre d’Économie desRessources Naturelles) and holds a degree in engineering from École Polytechnique and MINES ParisTech. Previously, François lead BCG’s Telecom sector globally.

MARTIN CAVEProfessor of Law, London School of Economics

Martin Cave is an economist specialising in competition law andthe regulation of network industries, includingtelecommunications. He has held professorial positions at BrunelUniversity, Warwick Business School, and the London School ofEconomics, where he is now a visiting professor. From 2012 to 2018 he was an inquiry chair at the UK Competition and MarketsAuthority, and now chairs Ofgem, the UK energy regulator. He isthe author of many books in the communications field, includingSpectrum management, Cambridge University Press 2016, now translated into Chinese, Korean and Spanish. He has writtenacademic papers in the fields of access regulation, universalservice, fixed and mobile competition, broadcasting policy,spectrum management and two-sided platforms. He has

undertaken independent advisory work for regulators in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Canada, Europe,and Latin America, and prepared sectoral regulatory reviews for the UK Government in the fields ofspectrum management, airports, social housing and water.


SEÁN CLEARYStrategic Adviser, World Economic Forum

Seán Cleary is Chairman of Strategic Concepts (Pty) Ltd; andExecutive Vice-Chair of the FutureWorld Foundation. He serves onthe Advisory Boards of EIT Climate-KIC, the WLA-Club de Madrid,Institute of Advanced Studies, Kőszeg and Stichting Para Limes(Netherlands). Seán is Senior Adviser and Senior Fellow of theSalzburg Global Seminar; Special Advisor to the Global SolutionsInitiative, Executive Consultant to the UAE Prime Minister’s Office,and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global FutureCouncil on Geopolitics. He studied social sciences and law at theUniversities of Cape Town and the South Africa and has an MBAfrom Henley Management College. He served on the staff of theCommander Maritime Defence in South Africa, before diplomaticservice in Iran (1970-75), South Africa (1976-1978), and the USA

(1978¬83); and as Chief Director in Namibia (1983-85), where he initiated negotiations betweenNamibia’s political parties, effected the release of political prisoners, and the adoption of a Bill ofRights before independence. He served on the Facilitating and Preparatory Committees of the SouthAfrican Peace Accord, chairing the Working Group on the Code of Conduct for Political Parties andOrganizations; the Executive of the NEPAD Business Group; and as Senior Adviser to the WEF’s ArabBusiness Council. He chaired the Advisory Board of the Global Economic Symposium, and served onthe Boards of LEAD International, Carbon War Room, Rocky Mountain Institute; Operation Hope, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and Salzburg Global Seminar. He teachescorporate strategy and enterprise risk management at business schools, and strategy and globaltrends at Defence Staff Colleges. He has received academic and public service awards, beenpublished in academic and policy journals, and co-authored Resilience to Risk (2006), and GlobalRisks (2007).

DIANE COYLEProfessor of Public Policy, the University of Cambridge

Diane Coyle was previously Professor of Economics at theUniversity of Manchester and has held a number of public serviceroles including Vice Chair of the BBC Trust (2006-2014), member ofthe Competition Commission (2001-2009), and member of theMigration Advisory Committee (2009-2014). She is currently amember of the Natural Capital Committee, an expert adviser to theNational Infrastructure Commission and a member of the Councilof Economic Advisers. She was awarded a CBE for her contributionto the public understanding of economics in the 2018 New YearHonours.


MISCHA DOHLERProfessor of Wireless Communication, King’s College

Mischa Dohler is full Professor in Wireless Communications atKing’s College London, driving cross-disciplinary research andinnovation in technology, sciences and arts. He is a Fellow of theIEEE, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Arts(RSA), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET); and aDistinguished Member of Harvard Square Leaders Excellence. He is a serial entrepreneur; composer and pianist with 5 albums onSpotify/iTunes; and fluent in 6 languages. He acts as policy advisoron issues related to digital, skills and education. He has had amplecoverage by national and international press and media. He is afrequent keynote, panel and tutorial speaker, and has receivednumerous awards. He has pioneered several research fields,contributed to numerous wireless broadband, IoT/M2M and cyber

security standards, holds a dozen patents, organized and chaired numerous conferences, was theEditor-in-Chief of two journals, has more than 200 highly-cited publications, and authored severalbooks. He was the Director of the Centre for Telecommunications Research at King’s from 2014-2018. He is the Cofounder of the Smart Cities pioneering company Worldsensing, where hewas the CTO from 2008-2014. He also worked as a Senior Researcher at Orange/France Telecomfrom 2005-2008.

MARTIN FRANSMANProfessor of Economics, Edinburgh University

Martin Fransman is Professor Emeritus of Economics at theUniversity of Edinburgh, now living in London. He is an authority oninnovation and competitiveness. He won the 2008- 2010 JosephSchumpeter Prize for his book The New ICT Ecosystem (CambridgeUniversity Press). His other book prizes include the WadsworthPrize for the best business book published in the United Kingdomfor Telecoms in the Internet Age – From Boom to Bust to ...? (OxfordUniversity Press), and the Japanese Prime Minister’s MasayoshiOhira Prize for The Market and Beyond (Cambridge UniversityPress). His latest book is Innovation Ecosystems – Increasing

Competitiveness (Cambridge University Press) which examines twoquestions: How does innovation happen? and Who makesinnovation Happen? He is now working on the question: How

should innovation ecosystems be designed to achieve objectives such as increasing competitivenessand productivity and meeting social challenges in areas such as climate change and health?


IAN GOLDINProfessor of Globalization and Development, Oxford University

Ian Goldin is the Oxford University Professor of Globalisation andDevelopment, the Director of the Oxford Martin Programme onTechnological and Economic Change and the founding Director ofthe Oxford Martin School. Ian previously was World Bank VicePresident and the Group’s Director of Policy, after serving as ChiefExecutive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa andEconomic Advisor to President Nelson Mandela. He has served asPrincipal Economist at the EBRD and Director of Programmes at theOECD Development Centre. Ian has a BA (Hons) and BSc from theUniversity of Cape Town, an MSc from the London School ofEconomics, and a MA and DPhil from the University of Oxford. He has been knighted by the French Government and haspublished 21 books, including: Age of Discovery: Navigating the

Storms of Our Second Renaissance; Development: A Very Short Introduction; The Butterfly Defect:

How Globalisation Creates Systemic Risks and What to Do; Divided Nations: Why Global Governance

is Failing and What Can Be Done; Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped our World and WillDefine our Future; and, Is the Planet Full? He presented the BBC Series After the Crash anddocumentary Will AI Kill Development? Ian has been a non-executive Director on numerous boards,is the Chair of the CORE-Econ initiative to modernise the teaching of economics and advisesgovernments and leading global companies.

LIYING GUODeputy Director, UK-China Global Issues Dialogue Centre, Jesus College, the Universityof Cambridge

Liying Guo is the Deputy Director of UK-China Global IssuesDialogue Centre at Jesus College of the University of Cambridgeand is the key founding person of the Centre. Liying has beenreading as PhD Student at the Centre of Development Studies, theDepartment of Politics and International Studies, the University ofCambridge with research subject “Critical Success Factors Throughthe Process of Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions: aComparative Study of Chinese Companies and Their WesternPeers”. Liying received her Master of Business of Administrationfrom the Judge Business School, the University of Cambridge. Liyingdid her Bachelor of Economics and Master of Arts at the Universityof International Business and Economics in China. Liying has recentinvestment advisory experience advising Chinese companies on

their cross-border mergers and acquisitions especially in infrastructure related projects. Ms Guoearlier worked as a senior executive for the University of Cambridge’s executive education programdevelopment and management. Liying also has over four years of strategic management consultingexperiences with A.T. Kearney and three years of political and business news reporting as a TV fieldcorrespondent at the International Channel of China Central Television.


JULIAN HORN-SMITHFormer Deputy Chief Executive of Vodafone Group

Sir Julian Horn-Smith was a member of the founding managementteam of Vodafone Group Plc and is considered to be one of theprincipal architects in the development of Vodafone’s InternationalStrategy. He retired from the Vodafone Board in July 2006, wherehe held the title Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Group ChiefOperating Officer. Sir Julian remains in the global telecom andbanking sectors. He is a Senior Advisor to UBS Investment Bank(since 2007), in London. In 2006 he joined the Board of DigicelGroup (the leading Caribbean, Central American and PacificOperator). Since 2014 he has been a Board Director of Veon. Sir Julian is an Advisor to The Chairman and CEO of SmarTone, a public company based in Hong Kong. Since 2015 he has been The Chairman of eBuilder and its subsidiary Marakanda AB

(a Swedish software company based in Kista, nr Stockholm). Sir Julian founded and Co-Chairs The TATLIDiL Conference (Between the UK and Turkey with the Rt Hon Jack Straw, former ForeignSecretary. The conference is one of the cornerstones in the relationship between the UK and Turkey.Sir Julian received a knighthood from HM The Queen in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List forhis services to international telecommunications. He was instrumental in the foundation of mobilenetworks in several countries, including Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, The Netherlands, Greece,Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Ireland and others. Sir Julian served three termsas a Pro-Chancellor at Bath University and Chaired the School of Management’s Advisory Board. Inrecent years, he has served as a Director on a number of well known Company Boards, including;Lloyds Banking Group plc (post The GFC), Smiths Group, eAccess in Japan (now Softbank), Acer Incand De la Rue plc. Also, during his career at Vodafone he was a member of a number of publiclyquoted Telecom Companies, including Verizon Wireless in The US, China Mobile, SFR in France andChairman of the Mannesmann Management Board and subsequently, the Mannesmann SupervisoryBoard in Germany.

PAUL KILLWORTHDeputy Director, Strategic Policy of Government Communications Headquarters

Dr Paul Killworth is the Deputy Director Strategic Policy in GCHQ.He joined the organisation in 1998, following an academic career asa Social Anthropologist, and has since worked in varied operationaland policy areas. He headed GCHQ’s Cyber strategy for severalyears and was closely involved in the Investigatory Powers Act(2016). He has also worked for the Ministry of Defence in Iraq andthe Balkans, for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as aPolitical Counsellor in British Embassy Kabul and was a member ofthe 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review team in theCabinet Office. Paul is married, with three children. In his limitedspare time he studies medieval history, writes and talks onemerging technology, privacy and security issues, and occasionallystill codes software.


TOM KINGPractice Lead of Political Due Diligence, Global Counsel

Tom King leads on political due diligence at Global Counsel, aboutique political risk consultancy. He previously served as aresearcher and speechwriter for MPs over two parliaments, beforehelping to establish specialist political due diligence as a key servicefor UK investors. Tom has advised on over 120 private equity dealsacross diverse sectors. At Global Counsel, Tom continues to provideinvestment-focused expertise, guiding clients seeking tounderstand international and domestic policy frameworks and thepolitical and regulatory initiatives that can shape markets. He alsoprovides strategic counsel to a number of our major digitaltechnology clients. Tom also has a background in digital technologyand its use in the public interest, having worked with leadinginvestigative journalists at the Organized Crime and Corruption

Reporting Project. In that role he had responsibility for building partnerships with technology firmsin Silicon Valley, policy-makers involved in open data and open government, and anti-corruptionadvocacy groups across the globe. He has also founded two organisations concerned with the sameideas: Aviso Advisors, which has worked with several civil society groups aiming to grow and scaletheir work via digital means, and 22nd Century Democracy, which aims to focus minds on the long-term needs of liberal democracies struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing informationenvironment.

XIAODONG LEEAdjunct Professor, School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua University

Dr Xiaodong Lee is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of FuxiInstitution, a non-profit organization which is focusing on Internetinnovation and development. He is Research Professor and Directorof Laboratory for Internet Infrastructure in Institute of ComputingTechnology (ICT) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and theAdjunct Professor and Director of Center for Internet Governancein Tsinghua University. He serves as Vice Chairman of InternetSociety of China, Member of Global Future Council of WorldEconomic Forum, Commissioner of the Global Commission on theStability of Cyberspace and, Commissioner of Global InformationInfrastructure Commission. Formerly CEO of China InternetNetwork Information Center (CNNIC, 2013-2017), Vice President ofICANN (2011-2013), Founder CEO of National Engineering

Laboratory for Naming and Addressing Technologies (2013-2017), Member of the MultistakeholderAdvisory Group (MAG) of Internet Governance Forum (IGF) of United Nations (2014-2017), Memberof the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG, 2014-2016). He received his PhD inComputer Architecture from the Institute of Computing Technology of CAS. Dr Lee has contributedto the establishment of several international and domestic technology standards in the fields ofdomain name and email, the application of “dotChina”, as well as the research and development ofthe first system of domain name services in China.


PATRICIA LEWISResearch Director, Chatham House

Dr Patricia M. Lewis is the Research Director, International Security at Chatham House in London. Her former posts include:Deputy Director and Scientist-in-Residence at the Center forNonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of InternationalStudies; Director of the United Nations Institute for DisarmamentResearch (UNIDIR); and Director of VERTIC in London. Dr Lewisserved on the 2004-6 WMD Commission, chaired by Dr Hans Blix,the 2010-2011 Advisory Panel on Future Priorities of the OPCW,chaired by Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, and was Senior Advisor to the2008-10 International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferationand Disarmament (ICNND) chaired by Gareth Evans and YorikoKawaguchi. She was a Commissioner on the 2014-2016 GlobalCommission on Internet Governance chaired by Carl Bildt and is

on the EEAS Space Advisory Board as a Senior Space Advisor to the EU Special Envoy for Space. Dr Lewis publishes widely on all aspects of international security including: chemical, biological,radiological and nuclear weapons; conventional forces; cyber security; space security; internetgovernance; terrorism; and conflict prevention. She holds a BSc (Hons) in physics from ManchesterUniversity, a PhD in nuclear physics from Birmingham University and an Honorary Doctor of Lawsfrom the University of Warwick. She is a dual national of the UK and Ireland. Dr Lewis is therecipient of the American Physical Society’s 2009 Joseph A. Burton Forum Award recognizing“outstanding contributions to the public understanding or resolution of issues involving theinterface of physics and society”.

MARK LEWISOHNGroup Managing Director, UBS

Mark is one of the most senior bankers at UBS Investment Bankwith over 30 years' experience at the firm. He is a Group ManagingDirector and has acted for many years as Global Head of TMT(Technology, Media & Telecommunication) Investment Banking.Mark is Deputy Chair of the Council of the University of Cambridge.Mark was educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge. He graduated with a first class degree in History in 1984. Markqualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse. In 1989 he joined the corporate finance department of S.G.Warburg; his early career was based in Tokyo and New York andsince 1995 in London, specialising in advising companies in theglobal telecoms sector. Mark has advised clients in relation to someof the most significant M&A transactions and equity raisings

around the world. M&A experience includes advising Vodafone on its €200 billion acquisition ofMannesmann (the largest M&A transaction in the world to date), as well as Vodafone’s ¥1.1 trillionacquisition of Japan Telecom (the largest foreign investment and involving the largest public offeringin Japan to date). Capital markets experience includes leading the privatisation IPOs of Belgacom(Belgium), Telia (Sweden) and Swisscom (Switzerland), in each case the then largest IPO in therespective country to date. He has extensive experience of transactions in emerging markets,including advising on the largest investments to date in Africa (Bharti's $10.7 billion acquisition ofZain Africa) and India (Vodafone $11.1 billion acquisition of Hutchison Essar).


JU LIUDeputy Director, 3GPP Account Department, Huawei

Ju Liu, Deputy Director of 3GPP Account Department of Huawei, has been involved in research, standard, product, business in thetelecommunications Industry for more than 20 years. Now, he isresponsible for Huawei 3GPP Domain Strategies Insight & Planning,help to build a healthy standardization ecosystem for the mobileindustry. Prior to that, he was Technology Planning Director ofWireless Research Network, Vice Director of Huawei GUL Small Cell Product Line, Director of Huawei DT Mobile InnovationCenter. Before Ju joined Huawei, he was responsible for MobileRadio Specification Department in Alcatel-Lucent China, andSystem & Specification Department in LinkAir. He graduated fromHarbin Institute of Technology, China, with a Master’s Degree in1998.

PREETAM MALOORHead, Emerging Technologies Division of Strategic Planning and MembershipDepartment, ITU

Preetam Maloor is the Head of the Emerging Technologies Division,ITU, and an expert on Artificial Intelligence and international cyber-related public policy matters. He has been a key member ofthe ITU Secretariat at several major conferences including the 2012World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT),2010, 2014 and 2018 ITU Plenipotentiary conferences, the 2009,2013, and 2021 World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forums(WTPF), and the annual AI for Global Good Summit. He also servesas the Secretary of the ITU Council Working Group on internationalInternet-related public policy issues and the Expert Group on theInternational Telecommunication Regulations. Prior to joining ITU,Preetam spent nearly 10 years in the private sector, workingprimarily at research organizations such as Intelligent Automation

Inc, a Rockville, Maryland-based research think-tank focusing on Artificial Intelligence-basedapplications, and at AT&T Research Labs, Florham Park, New Jersey in its Speech & Natural LanguageResearch Group. He holds Master’s degrees in Computer Science from Texas A&M University, CollegeStation, and in Engineering and Public Policy from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has aBachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Mumbai.


ANDREW MITCHELLMember of Parliament, UK House of Commons

Andrew Mitchell is the Member of Parliament for Sutton Coldfield.He was Secretary of State for International Development in theBritish Government from May 2010 until he became GovernmentChief Whip in September 2012. He was a member of the NationalSecurity Council in Britain and a Governor of the World Bankbetween 2010 and 2012. He was appointed to the Privy Council in2010. Prior to joining the Cabinet in 2010, he also held numerousjunior positions in Government (1992-1997) and in opposition(2003-2010). Andrew Mitchell is a Senior Adviser to Investec (since 2013) and Ernst & Young (since 2016). In 2017 he wasappointed as a Senior Adviser to the African Development Bank(AfDB). Previously he served in the Army (Royal Tank Regiment) asa UN Peacekeeper before joining the international Investment

Bank, Lazard where he worked on and off for 30 years. He was a Director of Lazard Asia and LazardIndia as well as of Lazard London. He is a Fellow at Cambridge University; a Visiting Fellow atHarvard University and an Honorary Professor in School of Social Sciences for the University ofBirmingham. Andrew was educated at Rugby School and Cambridge University, where he waselected as President of the Cambridge Union.

GEOFF MULGANCEO, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts

Geoff Mulgan CBE is Chief Executive of Nesta, the UK's innovationfoundation. Between 1997 and 2004 Geoff had roles in the UKgovernment including director of the Government's Strategy Unitand head of policy in the Prime Minister's office. He has been avisiting professor at LSE, UCL and Melbourne University and seniorvisiting scholar at Harvard University, a regular lecturer at the ChinaExecutive Leadership Academy and president of the InnovationDesign department of the Italian University of Design. He became aWorld Economic Forum Schwab Fellow in 2019. He advises manygovernments around the world on issues of strategy, innovationand policy. He is the co-founder of many organisations, includingDemos, Action for Happiness, the Social Innovation Exchange andUprising. His most recent book is Big Mind: how collective

intelligence can change our world (Princeton); other books include The Art of Public Strategy

(Oxford University Press) and Good and Bad Power (Penguin). His next book is Social Innovation:

how societies find the power to change published by Policy Press in November 2019. His books havebeen translated into many languages.


JUSTIN POYPresident and CEO, Dealer AIBOT Ltd, Toronto, Canada

Justin Poy has more than 30 years of experience in journalism,broadcasting and advertising. He is president and CEO of DealerAIBOT Ltd and CEO of InnovaThree. He is President and CreativeDirector of The Justin Poy Agency, a full service award-winningmarketing and advertising agency based in Toronto. Justin is alsovery active in charitable and community efforts, establishinghimself early on as a leader and role model in the ChineseCanadian community. He sits on more than 20 boards andcommittees and participates in many philanthropic causes. He is arecipient of the Chinese Canadian Legend Award and received theQueen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals for his outstandingcommunity service and philanthropy.

KEVIN RUDDFormer Australian Prime Minister; President, Asia Society Policy Institute

The Honourable Kevin Rudd served as Australia’s 26th PrimeMinister (2007-2010, 2013) and as Foreign Minister (2010-2012).He led Australia’s response during the Global Financial Crisis –he only major developed economy not to go into recession – and co-founded the G20. Mr Rudd joined the Asia Society PolicyInstitute in New York as its inaugural President in January 2015. Mr Rudd is Chair of the Board of the International Peace Institute,and Chair of Sanitation and Water for All. He is a Senior Fellow atHarvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House in London, a Distinguished Statesman with the Center for Strategic andInternational Studies in Washington DC, and a Distinguished Fellowat the Paulson Institute in Chicago. Mr Rudd is a member of the

Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s Group of Eminent Persons. He serves on theInternational Advisory Board of the Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University, and is anHonorary Professor at Peking University. Mr Rudd is proficient in Mandarin Chinese. He remainsactively engaged in indigenous reconciliation.


ADRIAN SCRASECTO, European Telecommunication Standards Institute; Head, Mobile CompetenceCentre of the 3rd Generation Parternship Project (3GPP)

Adrian Scrase is CTO within ETSI with operational responsibility forall of ETSI’s standards production activities. He has more than 35years’ experience in the telecommunications field, which includes30 years of experience in international standardization. He played acentral role in the creation of the “3rd Generation PartnershipProject” (3GPP) and is responsible for the operations of the 3GPPProject Co-ordination Group. He heads 3GPPs’ Mobile CompetenceCentre (MCC) which is an International team of 20 experts whoprovide comprehensive support to the Project. He was alsoprincipally involved in the formation of the “oneM2M” PartnershipProject and oversees ETSI’s support to that initiative.

JEONGMIN SEONGDeputy Director, McKinsey Global Institute

Jeongmin Seong is Senior Fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute,McKinsey & Company’s business and economics research arm. He leads MGI research teams in China, working on global as well asemerging market-focused themes. Jeongmin’s recent research hasfocused on globalization, technology, innovation and economicdevelopment. He has co-authored several MGI reports anddiscussion papers, including China and the World: Inside a changingeconomic relationship; Globalization in transition: The future ofglobal trade and value chains; China’s digital economy: Poweringthe economy to global competitiveness; The China Effect on GlobalInnovation; China’s digital transformation; Artificial Intelligence:Implication for China; Notes from the AI frontier: Modeling theimpact of AI on the world economy, Outperformers: High-growth

emerging economies and the companies that propel them; China’s choice: Capturing the $5 trillionproductivity opportunity; China’s role in the next phase of globalization. Prior to joining MGI,Jeongmin worked with companies around the world focusing on consumer facing industriesincluding consumer electronics, retail, and automotive. Jeongmin also led McKinsey’s emergingmarket growth service line. Prior to joining the McKinsey Shanghai office, Jeongmin was responsiblefor product marketing at Dell. Jeongmin is a graduate of Harvard Business School where he receivedhis MBA degree.


DAVID SKELTONPublic Policy Manager, Google UK

David Skelton has worked at the forefront of politics, policydevelopment and public service reform for over a decade and hasbeen at Google for four years. He worked extensively in the privatesector and with senior politicians and decision makers. Prior tojoining Google, David was Deputy Director and Head of Research atPolicy Exchange between 2011 and 2013. After leaving PolicyExchange, David founded ‘Renewal’, with the aim of broadening theappeal of the Conservative Party and pushing the policy concernsof the “left-behind”. Renewal was described by The Economist asthe “brains trust” of the modern Tory Party and by The Times as“tearing up the definitions of left and right”. He was Head of PublicAffairs at Weber Shandwick and worked as a senior adviser atFishburn, working with a number of blue-chip clients. He also spent

seven years as a management consultant, providing strategic advice to Police Forces, universities,local authorities and CEOs. He recently published a book called Little Platoons, described by the New Statesman as “fascinating and essential”. David has written regularly for a number ofpublications, including The Guardian, New Statesman, The Daily Telegraph, Prospect, Conservative

Home and The Spectator, as well as appearing on BBC Radio and TV and Sky News.

JEREMY THOMPSONChief Security Officer, Huawei UK

Jeremy Thompson is Executive Vice President Huawei UK andIreland and overseas the development of Huawei’s UK and Irelandbusiness. Jeremy is also Cyber Security Officer (CSO) for Huawei UKand Ireland. Jeremy joined Huawei UK and Ireland in 2012 asDeputy Managing Director with specific responsibility for carrierstrategy, business change and the key customers. In 2015 Jerry wasbased in Shenzhen, China. This role included supporting thedevelopment of Huawei’s carrier strategy globally and involvedoperations and strategy development in Asia, Europe and SouthAmerica. Prior to Huawei, Jerry worked for 20 years in seniormanagement roles for BT Group in the UK and other parts ofContinental Europe, including Spain and the Nordics. Jeremypreviously worked in the USA and UK for an IBM Software company

and consulting businesses. Jerry attended London University, London Business School andGreenwich University.


WILLIAM WANGFormer HR Director, Alibaba Group

Mr Wang is the former vice President of organizationaldevelopment of Alibaba group. He is an expert on organizationalgovernance and has extensive experience in organizationalgovernance issues in the digital economy. In the process ofAlibaba's transformation from a corporate governance model to aplatform governance model, he participated in the design ofdialogue mechanism with multiple goals and the valuereconstruction among multiple stakeholders on the platform. In the process of further transforming Alibaba into an ecologicalgovernance model of deep collaboration among multiple platforms,he creatively designed an organizational governance method called“co-creation”, which provided a new path for the inclusivecoexistence of multiple modes. Mr Wang has been working in the

forefront of the communications and Internet industries for the past 25 years. He has personallyexperienced the development process of China’s digital economy and has a unique understanding ofthe process, challenges and deep structure of Chinese society digitization. At present, Mr Wang isdoing a research about the impact of different ways of thinking and generative paths on governancemodels when Chinese and western cultures deal with organizational governance issues. Mr Wang isalso focusing on the education of the next generation, including how creativity, social responsibilityand global vision can really become the core competence of the next generation of young people.His research project, consciousness and entrepreneurship, is trying to refine the DNA structure ofentrepreneurship as a model for future humanities education.

TOM WHEELERVisiting Fellow, Brookings Institution, Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School

Tom Wheeler is a businessman, author, and was Chairman of theFederal Communication Commission (FCC) from 2013 to 2017.Presently, he is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and aSenior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. During the Obama-Biden Transition of 2008-09 Mr Wheeler led activitiesoverseeing the agencies of government dealing with science,technology, space and the arts. Among his many activities as anentrepreneur, he co-founded SmartBrief, the Internet’s largestcurated information service for vertical markets. He was Presidentand CEO of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) from1979 to 1984 . He served as CEO of several high-tech companies,including the first company to offer high-speed delivery to homecomputers and the first digital video satellite service and from 1992

to 2004, of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. He is CEO of the Shiloh Group, a strategy development and private investment company specializing in telecommunicationsservices. Mr Wheeler’s newest book is From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future

(Brookings Press, 2019). His commentaries on current events have been published in numerousleading publications. Presidents Clinton and Bush each appointed him a Trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He is a proud graduate and recipient of an AlumniMedal of The Ohio State University. He also received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters fromRochester Institute of Technology.


PETER WILLIAMSONProfessor of International Management & Chair, UK-China Global Issues DialogueCentre, Jesus College, the University of Cambridge

Peter Williamson is Professor of International Management atJudge Business School and Fellow of Jesus College, University ofCambridge. He divides his time between research and consultingon global strategy, M&A, and business ecosystem innovation andserving as non-executive director of several companies spanningfinancial services through to green energy. He has heldprofessorships at London Business School, Harvard Business Schooland INSEAD (in Singapore). Formerly with Merrill Lynch and TheBoston Consulting Group, he earned his PhD in Business Economicsfrom Harvard University. Peter has been visiting China since 1983and has authored two of Asia’s bestselling business books: Dragons

at Your Door: How Chinese cost innovation is disrupting global

competition and Winning in Asia.

DAVID WILLETTSPresident, Resolution Foundation’s Advisory Council and Intergenerational Centre

The Rt Hon Lord Willetts FRS is the President of the ResolutionFoundation. He served as the Member of Parliament for Havant(1992-2015), as Minister for Universities and Science (2010-2014)and previously worked at HM Treasury and the No. 10 Policy Unit.Lord Willetts is a visiting Professor at King’s College London, a Board member of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a Boardmember of Surrey Satellites and of the Biotech Growth Trust. He is the Chair of the Sanger Institute and the Chair of Foundationfor Science and Technology. He is an Honorary Fellow of NuffieldCollege, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society and theChancellor of the University of Leicester. Lord Willetts has writtenwidely on economic and social policy. His book A University

Education is published by Oxford University Press. A second edition of his book on the Boomers and the young generation, The Pinch, will be published inNovember.


ANDREW WYCKOFFDirector, OECD Directorate for Science, Technology, and Innovation

Andrew W. Wyckoff is the Director of the OECD’s Directorate forScience, Technology and Innovation (STI) where he overseesOECD’s work on innovation, business dynamics, science andtechnology, information and communication technology policy aswell as the statistical work associated with each of these areas. His experience prior to the OECD includes positions at the USCongressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), the USNational Science Foundation (NSF) and The Brookings Institution.He has served as an expert on various advisory groups and panelswhich include joining the Global Board of Trustees of Digital FutureSociety (DFS), being a member of the Research Advisory Networkfor the Global Commission on Internet Governance, theInternational Advisory Board of the Research Council of Norway

and Head of OECD’s Delegation at the G20 and G7 meetings on ICT and Digital Economy.

JAMES zHANDirector of Investment and Enterprise, UNCTAD

James Zhan is senior Director of Investment and Enterprise at theUnited Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).He also leads the preparation of the annual UN World InvestmentReport. Dr Zhan has directed extensive research and policy analysison key emerging issues, facilitated the formulation of outcomes atvarious summits (e.g. UN, G20, G7, APEC, ASEAN, BRICS, etc), andprovided technical assistance to governments and institutions(including cabinets and parliaments) in 160 countries. He led theformulation of global guidelines for the new generation ofinvestment policies, which have been used by over 100 countries.These include the Investment Policy Framework for SustainableDevelopment, Roadmap for Reforming International InvestmentGovernance, Global Investment Facilitation Action Menu, Guiding

Principles for Global Investment Policymaking, and Entrepreneurship Policy Framework. He initiatedthe establishment of the UNCTAD World Investment Forum in 2008. He chairs the Governing Boardof the UN Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative (with all major stock exchanges worldwide asmembers). He is chief strategic advisor for the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies.He is also editor-in-chief of the journal Transnational Corporations. He has held advisory positionswith academic institutions, including Cambridge University, Columbia University, Geneva University,and was research fellow at Oxford University. He was also member of the Advanced ManufacturingCouncil, and the Trade and Investment Council of the World Economic Forum. He has publishedextensively on trade and investment-related economic and legal issues. He appears frequently ininternational media outlets.


Some Selected Links and MaterialsBuild a global body to oversee telecoms infrastructure (The Financial Times, 2019) AI ethics and the limits of code(s): Five ways AI ethics needs to be radically reshapedThe global landscape of AI ethics guidelines (Nature Machine Intelligence, 2019)International AI ethics panel must be independent (Nature, 2019)Osaka Declaration on Digital EconomyThe joint statement on e-commerce issued in Davos on 25 January 2019 and signed by 76 WTOmembersG20 AI PrinciplesG20 Osaka Leaders’ DeclarationG20 Ministerial Statement on Trade and Digital EconomyCross-border data flows enable growth in all industries (The Information Technology & InnovationFoundation, 2015)World Bank’s World Integrated Trade SolutionThe Cost of Data Protectionism (ECIPE, 2018)Japan plans to stop the global digital economy breaking apart (FT, 2019)Abe heralds launch of 'Osaka Track' framework for free cross-border data flow at G20 (The Japan

Times, 2019)India boycotts Osaka Track, says global talks on digital economy should be held within WTO(Medianama, 2019)India’s data localisation remains a key challenge for foreign companies (Forbes, April 2019)Principles and Policies for “Data Free Flow With Trust” (ITIF, 2019)The Age of Digital Interdependence:The ‘UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on DigitalCooperation’ report, June 2019The High-level Panel on Digital CooperationCenter for Internet Security – a nonprofit that harnesses the power of a global IT community tosafeguard public and private organisations against cyber threatsGlobal Cyber AllianceWhy the World Needs an International Cyberwar Convention (Philosophy & Technology, 2018)The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence CentreGIPO the EC’s attempt at collating developments in the Internet governance UNCTAD’s Digital Economy Report 2019 – lists the advantages of treating data as a commonsThe EU Digital Single Market strategy (European Commission)Internet SocietyLay down rules of engagement for cyber war before it is too late (The Financial Times, 2018)AI and Machine Learning in Cyber Security (Towards Data Science, 2018)The International Telecommunication Union: ICTs for a Sustainable WorldThe International Telecommunication Union: Leveraging the opportunities of the digital economyUN Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation (including The Age of Digital Interdependence report, June 2019)Biarritz Strategy for an Open, Free and Secure Digital Transformation Dinard Declaration on the Cyber Norm Initiative Facebook vice president Nick Clegg pitches for cross-border data flow (TechCirle, Sep 2019)Facebook calls for new global standard on data sharing (FT, Sep 2019)Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry (Vox, April 2019)

Part IV: References

A summary of international efforts aimed at reducing cyber insecurity: In a world of cyber threats,the push for cyber peace is growing (The Conversation, Sep 2019)U.S. declines to sign declaration discouraging use of cyberattacks (The New York Times, Nov 2018)https://contractfortheweb.org/about/ – Tim Berners Lee’s initiative on the future of the webMicrosoft Is Right: We Need a Digital Geneva Convention (Wired, 2017)Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Visits Lawmakers To Discuss Tech Industry Regulation (Time, Sep 2019)



Established in 2018, at Jesus College Cambridge,the Centre is committed to promoting activedialogue between academics, policy makers andbusiness people around major issues we face inthe world today and tomorrow, and in whichChina has an increasingly important interest.These include the opportunities and impactsassociated with new technologies, globalgovernance, international development, health and welfare ecosystems, and changingsocietal norms and expectations.

Global issues researchOur interdisciplinary research projects examinethe dynamics of China’s integration into globalinstitutions, business and the global economy,and the changing international role ofcontemporary China as an important party toemerging global issues including population, the environment, and the implementation ofnew technologies.

The China-UK Global Issues Dialogue Centre'sindependent research draws on the expertise ofmembers of Jesus College, the University ofCambridge and the wider global researchcommunity.

Innovation allianceThe innovation alliance brings together mainlandChinese and UK companies, innovation centressuch as the UK’s catapult centres, policy makers,venture capital investors, to explore potentialcomplementarities between innovationoccurring in the UK and China. As part of thealliance initiative, we will build a technologyexchange platform that will connect researchersworking on emerging technologies with Chineseorganisations exploring similar fields.

One of our key partners in mainland China isChinese Academy of Science Holdings, an important part of China’s technical innovationsystem. Particular emphasis will be given to thepotential for Chinese partners to help UKinnovators achieve the rapid scale-up and

commercialisation of new technologies andunlock the huge Chinese market.

International DevelopmentThe UK-China Global Issues Dialogue Centreconducts two, week-long workshops each year,designed to foster 'Building Chinese Capability in International Development' It provides aforum for exchange of views and learninginvolving experts in the internationaldevelopment field including former ministers,academics, representative of non-governmentorganisations and international developmentinstitutions.

Topics for 2020 include: fostering developmentcapabilities along the Belt and Road, socialentrepreneurship, new paradigms ofinternational development, governance anddevelopment, and the role of international tradein promoting development objectives.

FundingThe activities of the non-profit UK-China GlobalIssues Dialogue Centre are funded through a mixof donations, research grants, and surplus fromexecutive development workshops.

The costs of the Digital Economy GovernanceDialogue: Multilateral Solutions for Informationand Communications Technology IndustryGovernance were funded from a research grantto the Centre provided by Huawei TechnologiesCo, Ltd. This grant was accepted under anagreement between the parties to uphold theprinciple of academic freedom, and act toencourage and support open and free inquiryand dialogue in research collaborations. This funding agreement provides for theconclusions of the research to be solelydetermined through the unencumbereddiscretion of the UK-China Global IssuesDialogue Centre and for unrestricted publicationof views, findings or conclusions resulting fromthe research, provided that these are clearlyidentified as the views of the Centre.

About the UK-China Global Issues Dialogue Centreat Jesus College, Cambridge



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Multilateral Solutions for Global Governance of the ... · countries as well as the developed world. Among these China will play a prominent role, given the size of her digital economy,