Last week, Dr. Thomas Zielke took the chance to participate in the World Summit on the Information Society Forum (WSIS) in Geneva. WSIS represents the world's largest annual gathering of the ICT for the development community. It is co-organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Zielke was invited as a speaker for a High-Level Policy Session on Digital Economy and Trade / Financing for Development and the role of ICT.

In his speech, he emphasized that although the use of digital technologies expands rapidly worldwide, there still is a significant gap between developed and developing economies in percentage of internet use. This clearly has to do with coverage problems. Thus, the potential of Digital Trade of goods and services, of streaming and cloud-services and of business opportunities even for small start-ups in rural areas around the world is enormous, due to the high rate of internet related communication activities worldwide.

Zielke is convinced that digital technologies have the potential to facilitate trade globally. For him as Director Standardization candidate at ITU TSB, it is important to state that standards are an essential element of the digital transformation ICT standards:

• ensure interoperability of technical infrastructure and data,
• operationalize regulations for new technologies and
• enable international trade and development.

International standards are a key to open up the potential of ICTs for inclusion and green transformation. International standardization and in particular the ITU play a crucial part in this international effort. During WSIS Zielke had a conversation with Björn Richter, Head of Digital Transformation Cluster of Global and Sector Programmes, GIZ. He furthermore shared thoughts with Guram Guramishvili, Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia as well as Malcolm Johnson, Deputy Secretary-General at ITU.