Call to Action: Digital Empowerment
Global Solutions Initiative (GSI) and the Global Initiative on Digital Empowerment (GIDE) are urging G20 to change direction in the digital economy
BERLIN, Germany, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Now is the time to place citizens’ interests and locally developed innovation at the core of digital economic strategies. Business models based on extracting personal data need to include the very citizens they exploit in the benefits. Citizens, both individually and collectively, must be empowered to effectively control and decide how data about them is used and exchanged and need to secure a direct benefit from their contribution to technology and data-driven businesses.
We urge G20 leaders to catalyze economic growth and innovation by placing citizens’ interests and locally developed innovation at the core of their digital economic strategies. This shift in focus would yield a larger benefit than the usual engagement in zero-sum trade wars and geopolitical rivalries over digital affairs.
In their latest Policy Paper submitted to the South African G20 Presidency, Vicente Arias Gonzalez (Associate, GIDE), Dennis Snower (President, GSI & Co-Chair, GIDE), and Paul Twomey (Co-Chair, GIDE) lay out how this could be achieved.