[digital.global] in dialogue

Climate change affects us all. How can we use innovative digital solutions to combat climate change? And how can we connect the global South and North to jointly develop innovative solutions for climate goals?

These questions were addressed by Svenja Schulze, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, at the bitkom Digital Sustainability Summit. Through the newly created [digital.global] network, new paths and partnerships can emerge with the aim of developing digital solutions to one of the most pressing questions of our time: how do we shape a climate-just future in the global South and North?

In addition, Noémie Bürkl, Head of Digitalization at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), discussed digital solutions to the climate crisis directly with companies from the MAKE-IT Alliance, bitkom, and local businesses in a side event.

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About the side event by [digital.global]

Roundtable: “Green Tech for Climate Action: advancing digital green solutions between North and South“

Collaboration with the private sector is essential to solving the global challenges of our time. This is especially true for climate change: on the one hand, our economic activities contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and biodiversity loss. On the other hand, innovative ideas and digital solutions can help conserve resources and build a sustainable digital and green society and economy.

In particular, innovative SMEs and startups offer digital green tech solutions to decarbonize supply chains and shape the transformation to a more sustainable economy and society. A dialogue between the private and public sectors, and between companies from the global South and North, can help promote green and sustainable technologies and approaches worldwide.

In the panel discussion, initiators and participants discussed the limits of their supply chain management and compensation mechanisms. The focus here was on innovative digital solutions. On the other hand, green tech solutions from climate adaptation were presented, which could be used especially in the global south. How can such solutions be scaled to maximize impact?

The following speakers discussed at the round table for interested companies:

• Noémie Bürkl, Head of the Digitalisation Department of Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
• Lara Obst, Co-Founder & Climate Officer of THE CLIMATE CHOICE
• Marco Christ, Managing Director of DEG Impulse gGmbH
• Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Rams, Co-Founder & CFO of Africa GreenTec
• Werner Neubauer, CEO of albis-elcon
• Robert Heinecke, Founder & CEO of Breeze Technologies

In addition, selected international startups gave us an insight into their work, including IoTeamVN, winner of the Green Tech Incubator Vietnam.

Host: Stella Deppe, BMZ digilab

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In April, the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development participated in bitkom e.V.‘s Digital Sustainability Summit. In her speech, she emphasized the crucial factor of digitization for achieving the SDGs and the importance of framework conditions for the digital transformation of partner countries in the Global South.

As part of the GovTech Summit Nele Leosk, Estonian ambassador for digital affairs, and Yolanda Martinez, global head of the GovStack policy initiative and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), joined BMZ to discuss digitization in development cooperation.

The GovStack side event, hosted as part of the Handelsblatt GovTech Summit, aimed to present GovStack as a lighthouse project of Germany’s digital strategy and to connect the international GovStack ecosystem with the German GovTech community, including policy makers, GovTech companies and startups, as well as networks, think tanks and civil society.

In a collaborative process, this Inclusive Innovation (ii2030) Challenge worked on a sustainable model to ensure open access to high-quality Earth observation data that can be used for machine learning, for example.

In this last co-creation seminar, we elaborated a revenue model for data platforms of organizations such as Radiant Earth Foundation that offer open Earth observation data. The goal was to increase the general availability of such data in the Global South. Earth observation data can play an important role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, such as improving food security or disaster relief.

In this online seminar, we focused on how data sourcing can be used as a lever to generate valuable data for third parties. We see this as an opportunity to make more Earth observation data available beyond traditional project and donor logics.

Rather than creating more technical solutions, the ii2030 process focuses on strategic collaboration among stakeholders to work together to create effective change.

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GSMA #MWC23 – Meet us!

Again this year, GSMA is hosted its flagship event GSMA Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2023. This is the largest and most influential event for the digital connectivity ecosystem. GSMA is a key partner in the BMZ’s Make-IT Alliance and an important collaboration partner with their Mobile for Development program.

We were there to exchange ideas with people who share the BMZ’s mission. We want to use digitization to contribute to better livelihoods and sustainable management of the planet. Together with our partners, we close digital gaps and deliver inclusive, fair and green digital solutions to expand digital participation in our partner countries and strengthen their digital sovereignty – for a just social-ecological digital transformation worldwide.

At #MWC23, we hosted GIZ side events to collaborate on how we can join forces:

Sharing Data for Development
When: 10-11 CET on Wednesday March 01
Where: Hall 8.1 Room CC8.4

• Data has become a key resource for economic development and its importance only continues to grow. Even though all actors in the digital ecosystem agree on this, there is still need to better understand how value from data is created and how the benefits of data can be shared. Join us in a discussion about the benefits and challenges of using data to cooperate with government on development challenges. We will explore strategies of sharing data to promote innovation, competition and productivity, as well as look into the barriers that hinder such cooperation. Discussion will build on approaches for using mobile data for women’s economic empowerment as well as data sharing and user-facing applications for informing public sector decisions.

Opportunities for an Inclusive, Fair and Gender-Equal Digital Economy
When: 11-12 CET on Wednesday March 01
Where: Hall 8.1 Room CC8.4

• This group discussion took place to discuss the current state of gender equality in the digital economy and specifically in the gig economy. We discussed the challenges and opportunities to reach groups traditionally excluded from the labor market and thus promote more inclusion and distribution of opportunities.

Scale Your Capacity Building for Free with GIZ’s e-Learning Platform atingi!
When: 12-13 CET on Wednesday March 01
Where: Hall 8.1 Room CC8.4

• On March 01, the GDPR-compliant, multilingual learning management system atingi was launched at #MWC23. All public, non-profit and private organizations can use atingi 100% free of charge to create and upload free courses for learners aged 16+ residing in the Global South. Organizations can also access and customize our rapidly growing library of more than 400 existing, openly licensed public courses – ranging from topics like agriculture to AI, digital skills, entrepreneurship, tourism and more. atingi works on desktops, tablets and smartphones and includes offline capabilities.

Visit the partner section on atingi.org for more information.

On the occasion of Safer Internet Day 2023, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and Bitkom e. V. invited to the joint conference. The event focused on the following questions : What role do data power and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) play in participation/discrimination? What changes do current regulatory proposals bring? To what extent can trustworthy AI help mitigate discrimination risks for consumers, and can the use of Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) help digital companies actively think about consumer interests from the outset when developing and deploying new technologies?

The Corporate Digital Responsibility Summit highlights sustainable IT solutions to save Co2 emissions. It is the leading forum in the German-speaking region that empowers companies and brands to reduce the impact of technology on climate and environment and to achieve corporate goals.

Experts* in sustainability & IT and selected companies presented solutions at the CDR Summit on how the digital transformation of business can succeed in a climate-friendly way.

The hybrid concept enabled participation on January 26, 2023 at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe or digitally.

Programm

Digitization is one of the German government’s priorities. The Digital Summit is the central platform for shaping the digital awakening with all those involved. The aim is to accelerate and deepen digitization and harness its potential for prosperity, freedom, social participation and sustainability.

Last year, the focus was on the data economy. The Digital Summit 2022 took a look behind the scenes of digitization and focused on the essential resource of the digital transformation: data.

In its national digital strategy, the German government has decided to present a strategy for an international digital policy for the first time.

For Germany and the EU, the implementation of a socio-ecological-feminist transformation of global economic systems toward resilient structures, which is essential in the global competition of systems in view of the turn of the millennium, can only succeed if we continue to support our partners in the Global South in their efforts to sustainably transform themselves digitally in the fight against hunger/poverty, pandemics, climate change and discrimination against women.

Minister Svenja Schulze therefore invited a broad network of international partners from the digital scene and ICT industry to the kick-off event for the strategic realignment of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (BMZ) digital policy.

Around 240 selected representatives from the digital scene, ICT sector, science, civil society and politics attended the event as an audience. In addition, a large circle of all relevant BMZ networks (Make IT Alliance, GIZ Business Forum, digilab, Strategic Partnership Technology Africa SPTA, participants of the transformation forums incl. DOs, NGOs, departments, etc.) participated virtually.

After the actual event and the launch of the network, the participants got to talk with the BMZ, the keynote speakers and the other participants about the digital reorientation of the BMZ in the context of four Open Spaces on the leadership priorities (Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences, poverty and hunger, Just Transition and feminist development policy).

Program:

2:00 p.m. – Launch of the new network [digital.global] with Federal Minister Svenja Schulze, presentation of first initiatives.

5:15 p.m. – Followed by exclusive dialogue and networking event for invited participants