INGENIEUR
the world’s population – are still not online.
Although much progress has been made in
closing the digital divide, the challenge remains
huge, complex and multi-dimensional. It requires
a collaborative, multi-stakeholder approach to
overcome four key barriers to Internet inclusion:
infrastructure; affordability; skills, awareness and
cultural acceptance; and relevant content.
More importantly, the Internet is also the
fundamental enabler of the Fourth Industrial
Revolution. The industries enabled by the Fourth
Industrial Revolution are likely to reshape the
global economy, creating immense opportunities
for those able to develop them.
The Internet for All Initiative
The Internet for All establishes and facilitates
physical and digital platforms at the global,
regional and national levels that will create
millions of new Internet users, with a focus
on those hardest to reach. It brings together
stakeholders from the public and private
sectors: non-profit, academic and international
organisations; donors and civil society to create
multi stakeholder partnerships.
Mitigating Risks in the Innovation
Economy
In order to enable innovation to continue
enhancing society, we must understand and
develop resilience against the interconnected
risk build-up inherent in the Fourth Industrial
Revolution. Thus, the Mitigating Risks in the
Innovation Economy project, will focus on
“Building Resilience.” We will bring together
infrastructure and technology developers,
insurers and Government officials across the
world in order to study current prevention,
response and recovery mechanisms to specific
risk scenarios across geographies such as the
failure of the smart grid and the cloud.
This project will not only assess current
resiliency mechanisms across the world but will
isolate key gaps and develop best practices across
multiple themes, such as: information sharing,
liability protocols, the role of insurance, and
governance and incident response mechanisms.
The project will then aim to implement best
practices across each theme.
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VOL
VOL 73
55 JANUARY-MARCH
JUNE 2013 2018
Artificial Intelligence in 2018 - Ralph
Haupter
As we start the new year, I see four Artificial
Intelligence (AI) developments happening over the
next 12 months:
(i) Mass adoption of AI starts from this
year
AI adoption is set to soar this year and beyond
when organisations start to see clear benefits
being reaped by AI innovations. IDC forecasts that
worldwide AI revenue will surge past US$ 46 billion
in 2020. In Asia-Pacific, AI investment is predicted
to grow to US$6.9 billion by 2021, expanding
rapidly by 73%.
(ii) Ubiquitous Virtual Assistants
We will begin to see the adoption of broad scale
AI in the form of conversational AI in chat bots in
both consumer and business scenarios. In fact,
technology research firm Gartner predicts that by
2020 more than 85% of consumer interactions
with enterprises will be managed without human
intervention and AI will be the key technology
deployed for customer service.
(iii) Democratising data and decision-
making
In a world where more data exists than ever before,
the ability to deliver meaningful business insights
from the data to the maximum number of relevant
employees becomes of paramount importance.
AI will be the key technology for making that
happen by bringing together data from employees,
business apps and the world.
(iv) Building trusted foundations for AI
There will be increasingly more discussions at
Governmental and industrial levels to create
formal governance and regulations in the
usage of AI. We saw these discussions with the
onset of e-commerce and the advent of cloud
technologies. It is critical for transparent public-
private conversations to take place as they will
shape how AI can benefit economics and societies
in a fair, transparent and trusted way.
The future of AI burns brightly, and I see this
year will establish a solid foundation for the mass
adoption of this exciting and vital technology.