Huawei touts plans for digital inclusion

He was among speakers at a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway (AP-IS) Steering Committee.
Escap (the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) co-hosted the session to review new research and implementation of the AP-IS master plan among member countries.
“More than 1 billion people are not covered by mobile broadband services,” McDonald pointed out in a speech titled “Redefining Inclusion”.
“And 3.8 billion people are still offline. That’s half of the world’s population.” 
He called on governments, industry and business partners to fill the gap.
“We need to take immediate action. Through joint effort, we can bring digital skills to all people in society,” he said.
“At Huawei, we have put together an action plan we call Tech4ALL, which has three priorities – connectivity, applications and skills.”
He said Huawei has vowed to continue to lower the barriers in terms of cost and coverage through technological innovation, help developers to create more applications for different communities and industries, and work with governments, local communities, and other industries to enhance awareness of digital skills and provide necessary help.
“For example, through our Seeds for the Future programme, in the past 10 years we have helped more than 30,000 students in more than 100 countries to enhance their digital skills.”
In Thailand, “Seeds for the Future” had sent dozens of university students to Beijing to study Chinese culture and to Shenzhen to study cutting-edge ICT technologies.
Huawei last year held an ICT Competition here to boost young people’s capabilities and drive the development of Thailand 4.0 and digital inclusion.
“Over the next five years our goal is to help another 500 million people directly benefit from digital technology,” McDonald said.
“This is our mission, and we hope you will join us. Together, we can bring digital to every person, home and organisation for a fully connected society.”