Although the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation across the planet, millions worldwide still lack Internet access, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, highlighting why information and communication technologies (ICTs) must be “a force for good.”
Countries across Asia and the Pacific are using new technologies to contain the global pandemic and mitigate its impact, the UN’s regional socio-economic development arm has said, as governments and experts work together to identify ways to innovate further, and build back better, after COVID-19.
Six young women from Namibia are on the path to a career in the field of information and communications technology (ICT), with the support of the UN office in the country.
Tiny balls moved along a series of automated Lego robots, as young students from New York explained to United Nations staff the inner-workings of simple motors and engineering.
Bridging the ‘gender digital divide’ is about more than ensuring that women and girls have basic access to the Internet and cell phones; it means providing training so they have the skills to use information and communications technologies (ICTs) to their benefit, and taking active measures to boost the numbers of women in ICT leadership positions, including in academia and entrepreneurship.
Access to data is crucial for humanitarians responding to various crises worldwide.
For example, aid workers feeding hungry people in Nigeria use a mobile-based platform to monitor the price of rice and other staples to know when costs increase.
To better assist these professionals, the UN has opened the Centre for Humanitarian Data in the Netherlands that aims to improve lives by connecting people and data.
A working group of the United Nations agency which coordinates telecommunication services throughout the world completed today a cycle of studies on key performance requirements of the next generation mobile networks (5G) for the International Mobile Telecommunications-2020 systems.