Specialists stress global ties to deepen digital effects

Internet and technology professionals from home and abroad have called for deepened international cooperation in various digital fields to benefit more people and make greater efforts in jointly building a community with a shared future in cyberspace.

The specialists, including those from governments, enterprises and research institutes, shared details of digital achievements and made suggestions during the Global Development Initiative Digital Cooperation Forum, part of the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, which was held both offline and online on Wednesday.

In the face of global economic challenges and rapid growth of technologies, many countries have realized the importance of digital economy and began joining hands to develop digital resources, technologies and trade, said Shang Bing, president of the Internet Society of China, while delivering a keynote speech to the forum.

China has seen benefits from digital economy, “and we’d like to work with the world to deepen cooperation in digital areas, such as those on basic infrastructure construction and governance”, he said.

He suggested the world strengthen cooperation in digital technologies, with more focus on promoting internet applications in building barrier-free facilities, in a bid to help the elderly and disabled benefit from a digital life.

Daniel Filmus, Argentina’s minister of science, technology and innovation, stressed in his address via video link that the world should develop wider and more deepened global digital cooperation, to underline that governments must shoulder the responsibility of managing new technologies and solving new problems.

As digital technologies have played a big role in many aspects of people’s work and life, such as healthcare and remote education, building a shared and safe digital future for all countries and fostering fair economic development are important priorities, hence he decided to highlight them through his participation in the Wuzhen Summit.

Eric Jing, chairman and CEO of Ant Financial Services Group, said the company has had many partners overseas, “and what we want is to help more people and more regions enter the digital payment age”.

While providing partners with technological aids to establish payment platforms, “We’ve also paid high attention to educating talent, as it’s essential to develop the global digital economy,” he said.

He also highlighted the significance of personnel exchanges and communication in the digital era, adding “We hope to work with more technological enterprises to make bigger contributions to building a more open, prosperous, inclusive and sustainable world.”

Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of Bilibili, a Chinese video-sharing platform popular among youngsters, said that digital cooperation could also be developed in the cultural industry.

“We encourage Chinese video makers to go global and introduce developments in the Chinese cultural industry, and we also welcome overseas video producers to our platform to show their own cultures,” he said, adding that Bilibili has more than 10 million users in Southeast Asia.

In addition, the professionals and other representatives also exchanged views at the forum on topics like strengthening capacity building of digital governance to create a new pattern of digital governance cooperation, sharing dividends of digital technology development to bridge the digital divide, and improving digital literacy and skills.

We’d like to work with the world to deepen cooperation in digital areas, such as those on basic infrastructure construction and governance.”

Shang Bing, president of Internet Society of China