there is something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps to support our nonprofit operations. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> c-span, democracy unfiltered, funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> you think that this is just a community center? it's way more. >> comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers so that students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> next, state department officials discussed the launch of a new u.s. development program looking at how cities in latin america and the caribbean can apply technology and

databased solutions to tackle urban challenges. from the atlantic council, this is just under 1.5 hours. mr. brookie: good morning, thank you so much for being here today. my name is graham brookie and this is a special event on driving smart cities in latin america and the caribbean. one quick point of order, the intro music for this event is markedly better compared to the rest of the atlantic council events and i think that that is probably specific to the subject matter we are working on. it is our particular honor to account with us today sitting here with us on stage, first and foremost, ambassador brian nichols, assistant secretary for western hemisphere affairs. jennifer bachus, inaugural assistant deputy for the bureau of cyberspace digital policy. both from the department of

state. they have chosen the atlantic council today to launch their programs aimed at empowering local governments. the digital agenda for transformation in the americas, which for those of you who are acronym nerds, translates to data, data for cities initiative. more on that and a second. across the region, the strategic and responsible adoption of smart city practices and technologies is already helping to strengthen local governments, make service provision more efficient and empower the financial capacities of municipalities across the hemisphere. we are going to get into a lot of examples and so i will spare you in the conversation throughout the rest of the session today. we are joined today on mine and here in the atlantic council studios by representatives from across the region who have driven the adoption of digital adaptation for urban development, including the mayor

of buenos aires, the secretary of science and technology of guatemala, and the former ministry of technology innovation of columbia, diego milano. we are also joined by keith, the regional director for latin america and the caribbean, from u.s. trade and development agency. as well as the director of the department of andrew technology services at the organization of american states. as well as our own edwards and diego, of the latin america centers. this event, organized with partners of the department of state, and the initiative whose announcement we have the honor of hosting, are all about what we are about here at the atlantic council, which is why this year we launched the atlantic council technology programs that motivated our sense of responsibility to drive

innovation and big, new, and ambitious ways, across all of the tech programs here on the atlantic council, we are all on one team and it enables us to work with programs like the latin american center, who are leading a lot of the work across the region. so, really excited to get into the conversation today and it's my honor to introduce the first segment with the assistant secretary, brian nichols and jennifer bachus, moderated by my fellow vice president, jason marczak. mr. nichols: thank you so much -- mr. marczak: thank you so much, graham. i think we own the rights of that music for another two years . we will be happy to take suggestions after that. i'm thrilled to be joined on stage by secretary nichols and principal deputy secretary bacchus for this really important day and announcement of this digital agenda for

transformation of the americas. it's really exciting. it goes back to the long-standing partnership that we have here with the state department on a range of different issues. we were talking about this together in the bahamas not long ago. let me set the context for the conversation and jump into questions. latin america is the second most urbanized region of the world, second only to north america, out of asia, africa, oceana, and across the hemisphere eight out of 10 people live in the cities. this was the rationale behind the u.s. hosting the summit of the americas last year following their hosting at the leader level in 2022. i was privileged, the atlantic council was privileged to be there in denver for that first

ever assembly. the momentum, the excitement was second to none. i know there's a lot of excitement around the continuation of that because city officials work on the front lines of global challenges and make those decisions everyday that shape the big question of really how do democracies deliver on promises of services, security, and opportunity for their communities and citizens? keeping that in mind and how deeply essential good local governments is for economic opportunities in latin america, i want to begin the discussion with you, assistant secretary nichols. welcome. i would like to help to frame this a bit more. what challenges, what opportunities do you see in the adoption of digital tools by cities across the region? and what key engagement programs is the u.s. leading in order to work with local governments across the region? mr. nichols: jason, first of

all, thank you so much for having me. this is a great opportunity to talk about how do we deliver for the citizens of our region? you framed it perfectly, i think you still have my talking points, about how we got here. mr. marczak: it was a mind meld. [laughter] mr. nichols: it was it it's perfect. you think about going back to 2020 the pandemic, where our region was in terms of lack of access to education online, collapse of commerce, dramatic start -- bike in poverty, among other things. be on that we have big challenges with things like delivery of public services, addressing issues of crime and

insecurity in the region. so, you started talking about the summit of the americas in los angeles of 2022. i would go back one event earlier, the oas general assembly the year before where we started to really incorporate a digital agenda into our goals for the western hemisphere. and then we built, we had five pillars there and we built on that in the summit of the americas in los angeles. i would just note that we are building on it further with aipac in san francisco and in lima. even though the asia-pacific economic cooperation doesn't make you immediately think of latin america, a number of countries in our region are in aipac and we are talking about how to deliver forever citizens.

you noted that this is one of the most urbanized regions. the smart cities, like in denver a year and half ago, that was an opportunity to hear from mayors, civil society, private sector. how do we deliver a digital agenda for the people in these regions? that means delivering on services from the government, security, housing, transportation. we are going to hear from experts and mayors, leaders in the region talking about how they are delivering in those areas, whether it's smart transportation in são paulo or whether it is access to housing and lighting. all of those things, delivered in a smart way that citizens can more easily access and demand accountability, that's sort of the approach that we have going on.

you know, i'm super excited. i don't want to suck up all the time, so i will pause there. mr. marczak: thank you, mr. secretary. deputy bacchus, when we think about smart cities, we think about modernizing government, data, visualization, transformation of public services. in thinking about that it means that large segments of the state are open to attack as well. how is the u.s. working with local regional governments on their critical tasks moving forward on cyber capacity? ms. bachus: thank you for the question and it's great to be here on this event of smart cities, incredibly important because of cyber issues but also technology issues, because who is running it will ultimately determine who has access to the information about your citizens and how it's being used.

similarly we have had long-standing cooperation with ois on cyber security. i had the opportunity to participate in the last two security summits, one was in the dominican republic, one was in the bahamas and we talked about how it was that we could support the region in making sure that you reduce the attack surface and increase the resilience and that ultimately you don't have state-sponsored or non-state-sponsored ransomware actors coming into go after the services. it's great to put things online, we think about it with transparency and accessibility, but if you are ultimately then creating the opportunity for either ransomware or state-sponsored actors to go in and take down the services, you have created a tremendous problem. we have seen around the world in this region and to be honest almost any country in the world has had this problem.

you need to do the basics upfront. you need to make sure that these opportunities for systems are secure, basic cyber hygiene, you need to have national cyber security strategies and figure out who is in charge of each part, which is complicated in the u.s. and throughout the region, but we have seen tremendous strides over the last five years as countries have adopted cybersecurity frameworks and really shown up to discuss this a variety of issues and make sure that they are, you know, that this data is secure, but the security comes both from basic cyber security but also who is running the systems. that part, we really do need to continue to pay a lot of attention to it. it's one of the reasons why i'm so excited the u.s. government is investing in smart cities in this region because i think ultimately it will bring about not just economic prosperity but national security for this region that is so critically

important to the united states. mr. marczak: going to why we are here today, to talk about the digital agenda for transformation in the americas, that incredible data acronym. what is the initiative? why is it so important? what are you hoping to achieve? mr. nichols: this is 4.7 5 million dollars that will go into a few areas. there will be an incubator and accelerator for projects around cities. there will be capacity building efforts and there will be financing opportunities for projects. this is really going to allow cities, individuals, civil society organizations who have ideas about some element of their urban space to come in, get the financing that they need

, get their training and capacity building done, all of those things, to be able to engage and deliver more rapidly for their citizens. so, imagine you want better sewage treatment and you have an idea around that. it means you have access to start financing, that means trading and perfecting your project, sharpening it. this will be available throughout the region. our institutions, like u.s. tva, development of finance corporation, usaid, coming into support these efforts as well, not to mention all the other sources of financing. mr. marczak: it's incredibly exciting. what does it look like, the rollout? mr. nichols: we are engaging with partners around the

hemisphere. we are starting here with the atlantic council, are great partners, and we will be able to engage in meetings, bringing you leaders from around the hemisphere, talking about this issue, bringing in the private sector in civil society, they are crucial partners. and then we will have the opportunity to do roadshows going forward, really going to people where they are. mr. marczak: i want to ask you one more question before going back to the deputy secretary. looking at the data, what's the role in terms of encouraging long-term use around sustainable and secure a city technology? mr. nichols: it's absolutely vital when you think about how you ensure that cities are properly using the information they are collecting. some cities have guarantees in terms of security verification of data and that the data will

not be used in a way that it was not authorized. and then you have some who have gone to what we would consider unreliable providers and that can be a great concern for people. whether your face is in a database that you don't control and don't have any idea how it's used, that can be a source of great concern for the average person. mr. marczak: i would love to get your thoughts on the importance of the initiative and additional thoughts on how it fits into some of the work achieved over the last couple of years at the city summits and other such efforts. ms. bachus: as i said, i'm so excited that we are able to show up in this way for the region, that we can say here are some opportunities, here are some resources, some capacity building, all the tools in the toolkit to make sure you can have smart cities that work for your citizens, on behalf of them, to deliver the services that they require. in addition to what you mentioned in terms of what we are building on, i think we are

also building on the tremendous work of the last few years over how you govern data. how is data -- and by that i don't mean the great acronym -- but you cannot go to smart cities without the basics on connectivity, data, privacy, transfer of information, and how have you built out all of that, including as we talked about earlier, cybersecurity. smart cities should come out on top of a really smart digital ecosystem plan. if you start with smart cities and have no idea about who is governing it and how it's going and who has access to the information, you get a free-for-all over this and again, to the point of the assistant secretary, it doesn't give citizens confidence. personally i don't want my information in an insecure database. i don't want anyone tracking where i'm going or what i'm doing. as a citizen is incredibly important to make sure these guardrails are in place to make

sure that the information is being used in a way that accords with the values i hold dear. mr. marczak: i would assume also avoiding reinventing the wheel in each city, right? it's an opportunity to look at best practices, lessons learned, and how leaders are dealing with those individual challenges, cybersecurity or otherwise. ms. bachus: i would note, as the assistant secretary said, the multi-stakeholder approach is incredibly important. you cannot just be government saying this is what we are going to do. you have to build it from the outset with the companies and how they are going to use it. what do they think is interesting and what does civil society think? academia, technical communities, it all needs to be built-in from the outset. our policymaking process in the u.s. is built around the idea that you roll these things out through a multi-stakeholder approach in that citizens, it includes citizens having a voice in the technology.

if i can get a smart city that makes it so i don't hit every single red light between my house and where i'm trying to go , that's great, but i would like to make sure that i'm not personally being tracked the entire time. mr. marczak: yeah, yeah, and there is so much expectation about the opportunities smart cities can create in terms of greater transparency around governance and the importance of cybersecurity, which is so vital for ensuring trust as a technology is deployed. assistant secretary nichols, last question, for those of you in the room or watching online, who are excited about the initiative, what's your advice to them as far as next steps? mr. nichols: well, watch this space. we have an email address for those who want to reach out and contact us directly, it is dataforcities@state.gov. great opportunity for you to

send us your ideas and concerns. if in your cities i'm sure a lot of people have ideas about what can be improved and i am encouraged people to work with those municipal leaders, civil society and the private sector to develop your ideas. we look forward to working with training, incubator work. i expect that we will see some really great projects. we already have smart lighting. e-bikes. recycling projects. housing. education. those are all things going on in the hemisphere already. maybe your community as is and have all those things and you want to find a way to bring it to you, or a new idea that none of us have thought of, it's a great night -- opportunity for you and our partnership with

u.s. tda, usaid, and other financing sources that will scale that depending on the needs for your urban area. mr. marczak: as we wrap up here, as we are all hearing, this is incredibly exciting and it shows i think the continued next frontiers that the state department is moving in in order to address these key challenges and be a partner in some of these incredible opportunities we are seeing across the region. ask outset, the importance of cities for moving forward opportunities to show that democracies develop to deliver on these priorities that citizens have across the region. thank you so much for joining us for this announcement. thank you for all of those who are listening. i'm now going to invite the deputy director for strategic development in the latin america center to introduce and moderate our next conversation. thank you both.

[applause] ,. [applause] [applause] [inaudible] >> thank you. good morning to everyone. i see some familiar faces. the first thing i would like to do to kick off this conversation is to extend our true thanks, not the protocol diplomat thanks, but the real thanks to the people who came out on a cold and rainy d.c. morning.

thank you so much. if your selves and applause for being here. thank you to you -- >> thank you to you, diego, for the exact same thing. and thank you to those who are joining us from other countries, virtually, including minister montenegro. to those here in person, just outside the room there are listening devices, if you would like to have simultaneous interpretation into english. >> for those online, sink -- simply click on the english version on our website. >> we just heard from two u.s. government officials spearheading this initiative. we heard details about this

exciting initiative to bring more resources and opportunities to latin america and the caribbean. in addition to access and modernization, we are also talking about services for the people as beneficiaries. this in a world that is undergoing a whirlwind of changes over time. people are seeking information. there is instagram and scrolling all over. i just found a video of a robot prototype that helps you with household chores and can help you take care of your pet and other tasks. and in a quantum energy flux, to , with enhanced reality and all sorts of changes. with all of these changes, almost half of the population of latin america and the caribbean

doesn't have access to the internet. so, we have a great deal of work to do, which is why we welcome this initiative and hope that it will help, especially given the political changes coming. so, we have three panelists here that will be sharing their own experiences with us and their experiences with this in argentina, guatemala, and columbia. so, diego was the intended for lopez in one us iras. he cofounded a political party with his brother and has led to initiatives having to do with digital infrastructure, security and modernization of public services and is now the mayor of .0 psi race. then we have gabriella

montenegro, phd and nutritional -- in nutritional sciences with studies from the free university of amsterdam and additionally and most importantly for today's conversation, she is an important figure of government modernization focusing her efforts on closing development gaps between rural and urban areas we will be talking about that with her. and in cold and rainy d.c., we have diego milano, who was a minister of technology in columbia and his experience includes poverty reduction and modernizing public services. thank you to all of you for being here. >> we know that .0 psi race is a

city leader in digital government. what made it possible -- buenos aires is a city leader in digital government. what made it possible for them to survive throughout the political changes? >> [speaking another language] >> thank you to the department counsel and department of state for inviting me to participate. greetings to my two federal -- fellow panelists. i think that the most relevant thing here was government stability, sustainable plans throughout time and a shared vision with former mayors that has become public policy. but in addition, a partnership with the private sector, or with citizens, so companies that are

part of this ecosystem, i always say that the city of plano say race has renewable human capital . we have had 14 unicorns coming out of the region, 11 of them out of the city of buenos aires. there's a lot of innovative talent linked to these ecosystems. here i would like to say something else. when you were, when i was waiting to be expected in the zoom room, or rather, i would like to provide you with a general framework that should be taken into account by all of those who have some responsibility with them. this is a time of real uncertainty. we have climate change, evolution and revolution.

technological evolution and revolution. ai will actually really disrupt markets and will affect them deeply. it's a moment of a great deal of uncertainty. we thought we had all of the answers and suddenly the question has changed. for that, we need to be humble. last week we had a meeting here with experts on ai from the capital city union of american cities, where we had government and private companies with students participating. i talked about this, when dealing with a lot of uncertainty, the worst is to have someone who thinks they have all the answers. when dealing with climate change we have both evolution and revolution. if it's evolution, you can get off the train and run with it. when it's a revolution, you have

winners and losers and you have to be humble. we have to understand what information is certain and we have to exchange information quickly. what happened in the past, and five or 10 years, now what happens within six months. you have to be constantly moving. do not think that any decision you make today is written on stone or that you aren't going to -- that you aren't willing to change it in the future. we have to review critical thinking constantly, especially at such an uncertain and aggressive moment in terms of changes. before we move on to guatemala -- mr. area: before we move on to guatemala, i wanted to ask you something else. i was reviewing the artificial intelligence bought used in the city. how has it helped you to reduce digital gaps? mr. macri: well, at base it uses

artificial intelligence and it was developed during pandemic. it gave us a quick bridge to establish a link with -- linkages in terms of translation and the covid pandemic. it could be about making a request for assistance for a medication or even for getting access to vaccination. it has now evolved. we have generated intelligence. on whatsapp you can say -- i'm in point of psi race, i am spending two days here, i have two children, please let me know what cultural and free children -- programs there are. the chat answers you with different proposals. but really, the bot is the tip of the iceberg of a government that is technology-based with a lot of information exchange and uses the same type of artificial intelligence tools for traffic,

climate, security, safety. it has allowed us to reduce our response time to an emergency by many minutes and every minute saves lives. it has allowed us to reduce by more than 1000 the cases with predictive systems linked to crime for arriving earlier with a patrol, because we have mapped this city. it allows us to have a digital ring, with more than 4 million license plates coming into the city and leaving the city on a daily basis. so, we have information about those vehicles. we have sometimes a criminal in a stolen car. we detect at least one per day. it has helped us to reduce this,

the criminality rate in this sense by a lot. so, it's a user-friendly bot, artificial intelligence-based. we have also added generative ai for questions that request very creative answers. it's amazing, some of these success indicators you have are possible. the objective of the congress -- mr. area: the objective of this conversation is for us to hear from others to try to replicate the successes, but going back to my original question where at least half of the population doesn't have access to the internet, we have cities doing incredible things, like buenos aires. this is the perfect segue to minister montenegro, who has an incredible story about how she

reduce gaffes and included the most vulnerable. minister montenegro, thank you for being here with us today. i would like you to talk a little bit more about how you did all of this with your projects. ms. montenegro: good morning. it's an honor to be here, thank you for the invitation in greetings to my fellow panelists. i would like to add something to what has been said so far. we would like to have successful experiences already collected, but we are just starting. i wanted to let you know that guatemala is a country with a great deal of inequality, not only in urban areas, and i have been asked about the differences in terms of rural areas and urban areas. well, we can start with

language. language is, the language spoken in rural areas is different and we have economic inequality with challenges that have to do with connectivity or electrification. a lot of inequality across the country. we are moving forward for sure. i undertook my position in the month of march. part of our commitment was precisely to try to make sure that technology reaches those that need it most and make sure that gaps don't increase. they may not be reduced, but at least we wanted to stop them from growing. that is our commitment, to work with community centerswith solar panel technology as well. end with women's groups. this has been an experience that came from the previous administration and we are supporting it, seeing it as an

opportunity to reach rural women in their own language so that we can help them start with the process, for example, to get an id or things like that, which can be done online. it's not only about connectivity itself, it's about literacy. it's about educating people. we saw a great opportunity in terms of how technology can be used. we think that this is a tool to be able to bridge some gaps. we are also afraid that inequality may increase and then for this to become a monster that cannot be controlled. and then people will stop being the center of society and the robots will replace this center,

citizens basically being the center of society. we have people that cannot read to. so on and so forth. we need to make sure we take care of the ethical part of the question and we need to work both at the same time. the ethical part and the connectivity. the easiest part will be improved connectivity. the hardest part will be developing that culture of transformation. something else i wanted to add is that i would like for this to become a public policy. we just started but we are really lagging behind. there was a lot of determination to start with an open government initiative, but the steps have been small. the government is committed and we are working with different working groups. progress has been slow but steady as we try to integrate the different stakeholders. one of the important ones being

civil society. mr. area: thank you for you, your work, for this initiative that was launched today. our guest poses some very important opportunities, especially for rural areas. obviously, we won't solve the issue of poverty or inequality in the region, but hopefully we will add to the solution. going back to washington, d.c., minister, thank you for being here. you have a great deal of experience in terms of public speak -- public service digitalization and a lot of successful examples, bearing in mind what has happened. can you talk to us about the experiences, lessons learned, and things that could be replicated in other countries and cities? what has civil society or the private sector learned about all of this? >> thank you very much for your invitation, it's a pleasure to

be here. it wasn't hard to be here, my office is a block away. the difficult part is that i'm leaving, flying to bogotá in 1.5 hours. well, we need to bear in mind different things. in terms of gaps, i am a member of a board of a group that has been working on the most important report on technology in the world and we published it a few days ago. we found out that the gap is basically, more or less all of us are at the same level, but in absolute terms the gap is growing. like when you ride in a bicycle, peloton in the front, you are in the back, going hard, but the ones in the front are pedaling harder. you think you're doing really well but the truth is, the gap is growing.

in america, 78% of latin americans are connected to the internet. you wonder, are well connected to the internet? like you are here in washington dc. if i were at home? in latin america, households with children, less than 15% with children are well connected to the internet, because most of them are connected through 4g or 5g networks and through p payment -- prepayment services that are used up fast. when you use up your data, you connect two different seasons through meta, whatsapp, so on and so forth, but that's not really the internet, so that gap continues to grow. we also found out the problem is not in terms of infrastructure. of course we need to keep building infrastructure, but the problem is how people are using technology.

the gap is more on the user's side, on the demand side. we have focus for too long on the supply side, infrastructure. we need to make sure that people use it and are productive. how do you solve the issue? well, i think that dr. gabriela and mayor mr. macri have hit the nail on the head. in the ranking that we have in the report we are going to publish in terms of digital talent, we are really at the bottom. we are really at the bottom. we need to improve our higher education to, for people to be ready to join the labor market. fewer and fewer people are going to university, we are not

producing talent. that is what mayor macri said, it's not about copying and pasting, it's about coming together. in terms of digital technology, the main element for success is scale economies. everyone uses the same words. it whatsapp, in indonesia. the same google is in latin america. however, every city is coming up with their own, has their own technology, their own solution. what we have to do is come together and maybe the atlantic council could be an important stakeholder to bring everyone together and standardize everything with scale economies. that's the most important thing, scale economy.

mr. area: in the second city summit, i think that would be a great opportunity to drive and initiative like you are describing. it will bring everyone together. it's exactly right. as jennifer was saying, the ecosystem needs to have a foundation that is common to everyone. mr. milano: we need to get on the same page. build the ecosystem. so that you can have economies of scale that are urgent. as the mayor said. and we had been following the example closely a buenos aires. it's really a reference. the more that we standardize, the better it will go for all of us.

so, let's go to the second round of questions. we will have a bit of a more dynamic exchange. we don't have a lot of time, but i didn't want to miss the opportunity to ask the mayor, who has committed to the atlantic council to leading this . especially because you have been working on this for a while. what are the suggestions you would give to cities just beginning to adopt technologies? what lessons learned could you share? mr. macri: as diego said, it's not about a copy paste, but i could use another metaphor. when you have the different palatines in cycling, right, columbia is better in cycling than even argentina. you don't want one group slowing down the other group. you let the faster palatine go ahead, move ahead, break records . but you also don't want to leave

anybody behind. so, the leaders show the way. but nobody falls behind. i will be happy to try to take the lead on this. i think we can reach out to companies and take advantage of different meetings, etc., that have partnerships. you can identify the creative initiatives. we in the government tend to be slow, so we aren't always the best source. one good way to close gaps is to think about digitization, but not just that. we need to focus on english as a language, too. there is a gap there, everything that happens in the technology world happens in english.

so, we have bilingual education with 180,000 students that graduated this year. with digitization and english, this goes hand in hand. the digital platforms can help people learn english and it will help everybody have greater access in the technology world. and then there is an initiative where in the beginning we are going to be the lead city in this, opening up three centers, tumo, a non-formal education mechanism that originated in armenia, led by sam's ammonium, and iranian raised successful entrepreneur in the u.s., it's a marvelous system that really

generates creativity in the arts and in this digital ecosystem. with robotics, all of this, it becomes accessible to kids 13 and up, where they can build new knowledge. it's wonderful. as the secretary was saying, 13 to 18, kids are bored in classrooms. we need to help them ask questions and not just answer hours. here is where we can use technological opportunities. it's a wonderful tool. english, working with the private sector, it's a great way to challenge the more traditional educational models. mr. area: what else can the multilateral world too, neighbor countries like the u.s., the

private sector, civil society, what else can be done in your mission to help close the gaps in your country, secretary? ms. montenegro: i am totally in the agreement with the idea of regional standardization. all of this technology is based on data. we need to gather the data. have that be the platform for the next step. now, vis-à-vis what the mayor said, i have to take issue with a little bit, you are focusing on english but we are looking at it differently. we think the native languages should be respected and fostered as well. one can have both, of course. one important thing, analyzing

our strengths and weaknesses, building on that. mainly, it's true, we cannot copy and paste, but at a minimum we need to see where we are with regards to others and how we can take that next step without having to go through everything that everyone else went through. i have been in dialogues with other countries of the region. i see that there could be some leapfrogging with many challenges in terms of planning and actually having smart, sustainable cities. it requires solid planning in advance. what i would like the most is to have more dialogues like these,

working with like-minded countries, countries working on the same thing, working at that level of strategy. there are talks of laws, but i think you need to go to something even more basic, first. i would like to see a continuation of these dialogues, analyzing properly where we are and what is possible to do in one administration. i'm clear, we cannot allow the gaps to continue to grow. mr. area: thank you, secretary. it's important to bring decision-makers and leaders together from different areas, as we do have such diversity in the region. now, diego, polarization is an issue around the world and the region. it's not immune to that.

what public policies regarding technology and public goods, etc., which are going to be able to survive these political headwinds? mr. milano: well, i think the private, the private sector can help with this. when we work with a country, when you look at a start up, how much does the idea costs? zero. nothing. the value of a startup is not in the idea, it's in the execution, not in making it happen. the same is true with public policy. the plan is worth nothing. the value lies in doing it, and

that is what people have two c. my plan is to create a new economy, for example, around the digital economy. new jobs, new exports. or my plan could be modernized cities, iron out the kinks and the bureaucracy, or improve public safety. that's a major issue in latin america. the key is execution, implementation. put your money where your mouth is, as the americans say. i would say stop being an advisor, be an implementer. i'm going to be moving to bogoáa to operationalize these things. there is an initiative for the shareholder as the initiative in bogotá, so to speak. we are going to implement a new era of smart cities in bogotá.

so, you need to, and light of polarization, focus on what's truly worth something. mr. area: thank you and good luck with your new responsibility. thank you for being here, mayor, secretary, thank you for joining us as well, we know you are incredibly busy. we are going to move on now to yet another panel with my colleague, valentina. we will also be hearing from the private sector, from amazon web services as well in the video. thank you to everybody. >> hello, everyone. i am managing director of the latin america public-sector team at amazon web services. i'm recording today from las vegas, and i wanted to extend a special thank you to the atlantic council's latin america center and the u.s. department

of state for the invitation to share a few thoughts with you today. i'm honored to be talking with this distinguished audience. it is great to see my fellow argentine, mayor of the city of buenos aries, also president today. -- also present today. the latest technology offerings is critically important as big urban centers are attracting more and more people. by 2058 is expected that 70% of the total world population will live in large, urban areas. through strategic analysis of urban data, design of infrastructure, and a focus on improving citizen services, cities can increase citizen satisfaction and optimize the use of resources all while meeting climate sustainability goals.

and the private sector provides government customers with cutting-edge cloud infrastructure and i.t. services to achieve these objectives. the national civil protection system, for example, created an early warning flood system that uses artificial intelligence modeling to save lives. another example comes from mexico, where state officials are using data in near real-time to generate insights and make decisions quickly. it ranges from improving student dropouts, to providing support to the most vulnerable populations. these examples and many more we could share are just the start of what we believe will become a great area of innovation. that will drive better, more

efficient citizen services and increase the quality of life throughout latin america. enjoy the event. we look forward to hearing from all of you so that together we can think of even more ways for us to use innovative technology to help fix the many challenges facing our citizens in the hemisphere. thank you. >> thank you so much. i think that was the perfect way for us to turn to our conversation, because we have talked about the importance of these technological advancements in the scope of security, prosperity, inequality. the role of this data for cities initiative for financing the region, but also the inequalities in the region and the importance of digital literacy, which i think is something we will touch on. especially because now this conversation is supposed to emphasize the responsibility that we have in adopting some of

these tools and technologies. for that i am delighted to be here, joined by an esteemed group of experts that have the responsibility of adopting these digital tools in the americas. i'm going to start with keith eischeid at the u.s. trade and development agency and responsible for developing and supervising activities in the region to support priority infrastructure projects and create opportunities for u.s. exports. to the right of keith is my fellow brazilian, andrew vanjani , the director of department of information and technology services at the organization of american states. he has a long commute in this field, including within maryland's department of information and technology. and last but not least my colleague within the atlantic council.

she is the director of the capacity building programs where she coordinates the overarching strategy for program capacity building efforts assigned to upscale policymakers, down silos to good communities of action and develop the next generation of the global technology workforce. basically everything we have already touched on. [laughter] to kick us off i wanted to turn to you, keith. assistant secretary nichols just announced the launch of the digital agenda for transformation in the americas data for cities initiative. to help us kick off this discussion how will the u.s. trade and development agency support it? mr. eischeid: thank you very much, and first of all thank you for moderating this panel. to my panelists, it is a pleasure to join you. to the atlantic council, think you for hosting us today, and especially our partners at the department of state for all of their leadership in this space.

we are very proud to help implement the data for cities initiative that was launched today. u.s. tda has long partnered with governments in the region, and this initiative will deepen and expand our partnerships to advance large city infrastructure and projects in the regions. specifically our role within this initiative, as i mentioned, is actually in part of your handouts as well. we are grateful to receive funding from the state department to an interagency agreement for nearly $3 million for project preparation. particularly focused on this space. what u.s. tda is, is the project preparation agency of the u.s. government. we can provide even more grants for feasibility studies, technical assistance, and pilot products that can help advance smart cities projects in the region while opening up the door for u.s. technologies and

solutions to provide some great advancements in this area. so, you know, we can get into some more examples, but as one of the main implementers of this initiative we are very proud to be part of this and look for new projects in the smart city space. ms. sader: i'm sure many of our partners in local government around the region are excited to hear more about how this program can actually benefit them directly. how is that they are getting in touch to learn more? assistant secretary nichols shared the link and email to get in touch with for more information, so i think that will also be important. andrew, turning to you, across the region, from the smallest rural towns to the largest urban centers, we see the implementation of take ologies applied to service delivery and policy implementation across the board and in many areas in particular. these go from online paying system for local taxes to whole

scale security monitoring systems. but there are many interesting that we see. how quickly have these new technologies and tools actually been incorporated into the region, and what do we mean by the responsible adoption of these tools? mr. vanjani: let me thank you as well, valentina, and my panelists, for the invitation. i think this is a great event with all of the right folks in the room virtually and to have a very productive discussion. over the past decade i would say if not longer there has been a lot of digital adoption in the region, latin america and caribbean, mainly. i think one thing it is to have the digital adoption, but i have seen also a little bit of fragmentation on some of these initiatives. i was talking earlier with keith, and i'm reading here the

brochure on the data for cities, and there are a lot of pilot investments that happen. they start with proof of concepts, and then i'm curious to know if we are measuring the metrics on how many of those continue, right? i don't know whether that is happening. i see a lot of investment on smart cities and in government. but i'm not sure whether they are scaling to the rural areas. we talked about this earlier. you know, it is creating, as the minister of guatemala said, kind of a digital divide. we have more digital adoption, but digital divide is expanding in a way. it could be for a variety of reasons. it may be lack of conductivity which exists in rural. in maryland you would think we are well connected, but i travel to deep pockets of maryland with senator van hollen and we are not as connected as we thought we were.

so, a couple of things i would keep in mind is that fragmentation. a couple of things i would think is from the oas perspective, and our four pillars are to promote democratic principles, and sustainable development, and security across the region. i also don't see a lot of alignment on camino, at the national level, perhaps, from those core principles. i think the foundation base should be on those core principles. and on the other side, from the national perspective, and we talked a little bit about data and data protection, data protection and citizens wanting to own their own data and so on. what is the appetite of each nation in terms of the sovereignty, right? whether it is national sovereignty, whether it is digital sovereignty, citizen sovereignty. i think that is important.

what i mean by that is, how much autonomy and control we want to have over these digital assets we are implementing. the infrastructure as well. the data. i think those are things we have to keep in mind as well. ms. sader: safa, i wanted to turn to you about the importance of digital literacy. i think this is something that goes directly to your expertise here at the atlantic council. what role can education and capacity building play in supporting the development of responsible governing, transparency, and security standards and the adoption of these digital tools? i think this is particular important for latin america and the caribbean and i would love to hear from you on what the role is and how we can make that happen. ms. edwards: i'm happy to call out that capacity building as we invest in these new technologies. there is also rick was at

investments that have to be made on training and education. what does that look like to maintain and take advantage of these new tools? a beastly technical trainings come to mind, but in addition to that there is also a need for policy and strategy training to better understand how we govern these technologies, how do we leverage them? but also keeping that through line of, there is responsibility here. what responsibility do we have for folks and how do we make sure we keep that front of mind as we are developing strategies? there is an opportunity to engage folks in different organizations through that. last piece is for average people. in a way what we are talking about is, how do we create or inform users of technology? if one is, but they have differing levels of understanding. how do we create a more informed populace that is able to take advantage of these technologies but also understands the ramifications of that and responsibilities associated with that so they can hold their governments more accountable?

ms. sader: i don't know how many of us here actually read through the, do you accept everything that you were sharing with websites that you are clicking on. so i think this is part of the digital literacy experience of understanding the degree of information you are actually sharing and if you are comfortable with that or not. nowadays if you are rejected you don't have access to everything you wanted to see. i think this is very important for us to continue this conversation. keith, i wanted to, just thinking about, the investment part, in what ways has the ustda been working on the adoption of responsibility -- responsible digital tools for urban development that could serve as a success story for the region? and if there are any lessons you could share with us in terms of those adoptions and the responsibility and accessibility of those? mr. eischeid: thank you very much. i wanted to touch on a couple of the questions that andrew raised. i'm going to try to integrate that into my answer. we do follow the monitor and

implementation of our projects and we are proud of our success. these success stories we have is in jamaica, with smart streetlights. it is something assistant secretary nichols brought up in terms of the lighting and how important that is. in jamaica we partnered with gps, which is the utility there. to test and pilot smart streetlights and really incorporating led technologies along with intelligent controls and metering capabilities. they were able to not only implement smart streetlights in kingston, in montego bay, but also in the rural areas. it led to over 100,000 new smart streetlights across jamaica. and going back too, we are very pleased and proud to be partnering with minister

montenegro on the digital conductivity centers you mentioned in her presentation on the last panel. these digital conductivity centers are, there is about 10 pilots right now, and for the rural areas that are rural-led and indigenous lead, and utilizing solar energy. that, we hope, will lead guatemala templeman over 3000 sites across rural guatemala. so, there is a divide between the cities. there is urbanization, but also bringing benefits to those areas is import. the topic of today is smart cities. we have many ongoing projects in the region. we have returned to kingston and have grown ongoing pilot for technologies there. we also are working with the city in mexico in terms of the public transit and improving the bus system there. we are doing that also in ecuador, where over 70% of the population utilizes public transit everyday to get to where

they need to go. we also are helping them with intelligent transportation systems there. i visited the bus control center and you can see how the traffic is progressing through quito. it is important to partner with state and city governments, we do, and the private sector as well. this multi-stakeholder approach is critical. we are proud of the partnerships we have and we are proud to have the opportunity to reach even more, to partner with more cities throughout the region. ms. sader: that is the multi-stakeholder approach, is one that we are great to be able to hear from aws as well in terms of the public-private partnerships we can advance in terms of the adoption of these digital tools. andrew, you have spoken publicly before about the need for solid breaks when undergoing such high-speed transformations. particularly with the implementation of ai for policy. i wanted to pause and ask, do

you mean by that? and what lessons can we draw to learn about both the need of the said breaks and the best ways to design them? i think that goes into the responsibility aspect of what we are talking about and the implementation and tracking of how the metrics and scaling of this tech advancements. mr. vanjani: absolutely. just to clarify, i still that quote from a panel where i was backing -- back in the block chain days in brazil. there was this panelist that talked about, formula one is very big in brazil. there was this very famous singer who died, and apparently he said something to the extent of, we need to put better breaks in this race cars, but not to slow down, but to be able to go faster. and, you know, we want to accelerate on that sharp curve.

that analogy applies. i used it recently in a panel in uruguay, and i think it is very applicable to the setting we are discussing today. that is what i meant by that. it is more that balance between regulation and innovation, right? that conundrum that we are always part of. so, you know, i think as policymakers we have to keep a couple of things in mind. the pace of technology was always camino, outpacing the regulatory framework. now with covid and more digital adoption and with ai it has been exponential, and we just have to accept that. i think policies and regulation as tools for acceleration, and perhaps not restriction, that is kind of the idea. everything i would say is, and i talked to a lot of folks as i traveled, on different regulatory frameworks some countries are more regular --

more regulated than others. brazil is more centralized. here we are more decentralized. but creating an environment that is, you know, low in complexity, low in uncertainty, i think that helps all of the stakeholders citizens in the private sector. what i mean is, there were many examples but i remember the days we were talking about net neutrality. you know, starting even here in the united states. in the caribbean we have talked about that. in brazil we have talked about that for the last decade. i don't want to get into the details of net neutrality, but putting much is the internet considered a public utility or information service? that becomes, you know, it changed from title i to title two pair -- title two. . depending it is either the ftc

that regulates it, so it complicates things all over. having a good regulatory framework that simplifies things, especially, you know, big boys can adjust quickly because they have the funding, but small businesses that have to change their products, right, i was at a world bank -- i will just take a note. i know i am optimizing your panel -- i am taking your panel. a couple of months ago, unlike going to say which agency, but this person was combining about the contradictions that exist between gdp are and the act. it just went live a couple of months account. you know, think about it. gdp are already created regulations for small businesses in europe and large businesses. sometimes it is cost prohibitive to change their products to adjust to that. but the act is cross-border.

it would impact small businesses anywhere in the world. and so, you know, we have to consider the economic impact as well on the regulatory framework. that is kind of what i mean by that. ms. sader: that is interesting. that is something for us to consider and have conversations about. we have limited time here, but i think there is much more to be discussed in that sense. safa, as governments begin to adopt these new technologies what investments should also be considered to protect the integrity of the systems and anticipate threats associated with a growing attack surface? we touched on this at the beginning of this event in this conversation, but i think there is, in addition to digital literacy we were talking about and the education, the capacity building we were discussing, but also the need to adapt to a

changing environment, how do you see some of these investments being important for the integrity of these systems? ms. edwards: i really appreciate that call out. malicious actors will target that tax service. they will try to take advantage of that. there is a need for investment and training and education and capacity building so we can use these systems, but also protect them. there is another policy component that is a little bit less tapped into then we should be and a lot of opportunity for us to increase that through information sharing. but also with peer-to-peer and also other countries in the region there is an opportunity for us to engage on these issues and really double down on those efforts to support international cooperation. i would love to call out the oas, because that comes to mind immediately. we are training cyber

professionals through our university training programs. we are trying to get them familiar with those frameworks that exist so they can go into the workforce and try to leverage those. really trying to see what small actions can have outsized impacts when it comes to the stability of cyberspace. taking it more predictable place. -- making it a more predictable place. ms. sader: for sure. we are going to make a comment? mr. vanjani: no doubt. folks are working from home. every company has become a cloud company, and governments as well. i think the surface of attack and new vector that exists are important. the other is on the resiliency side. no, redundancy side. we all remember what happened with crowdstrike earlier this year. right? that impacted -- i don't know, it was probably in the billions, the global economic impact.

that single point of failure that all of these companies -- alta, i don't know how many flights were shut down -- that is important as well, to minimize single points of failure. i heard diego talked before about the gap in the demand-side and we have to execute our plan. but designing these systems, especially smart cities, right? because you do not want to there and single points of failure because the impact is much higher. i think spending some time to minimize single points of failure is as pertinent, and i would add, on the capacity building, i was in sao paulo talking to friends, and sao paulo has become a very big digital city. very interoperable, but they have a lot going on there. a couple of my friends are very -- i don't want to say upset, but they are disappointed with

the communication that exists between the government and citizens. the need for redress mechanisms and grievances mechanisms both at the same time, not one and the other, to communicate with the government, like a friend of mine was saying, i keep getting these speeding tickets -- not speeding tickets -- i made a left turn here and i automatically get, because sao paulo has lots of cameras that do analysis and automatic payment, you know? and they send it directly. and a lot of the malfunction. but if they malfunction or not you still get that bill. it takes a long time for you to -- and these are small things we don't think from the perspective of the citizen. to write that dispute letter or go to court, whatever it is, the mechanism over there, if we don't have the proper redress mechanisms and grievances on the side of the government, you

know, that is part of the capacity building that is important to consider when we deploy the solutions as well. ms. sader: sao paulo would also benefit from your example of quito. i think this is something we should take into consideration. to wrap up, i think it goes directly to what you were mentioning, andrew. as a final round of all three of you, what is one set of recommendations or policy change that you see -- that you would suggest for cities to adopt responsible transparent, resilient, efficient tools for development? keith, i will start with you, but i think it would be important for us to talk about from your perspective on the investment side, but also what we were talking about, the metrics and the ability to scale? mr. eischeid: thanks again to this panel for the great discussion today and i

appreciate it. from our perspective, yes, the project preparation is really key in order to have that roadmap for deploying and implementing smart city solutions and technologies. and it is really critical because there are existing systems. so how do you integrate with the existing systems? how do you protect it? how do you understand how it is going to impact the citizen? that is why it is great to have this funding under this initiative, to be able to do this type of project preparation, whether it is a feasibility for pilot project. in terms of a recommendation, please approach us. we are very excited to be working under this initiative. we would love to partner with you. i just came back from brazil over the weekend. and so seeing this in real time. we did have a great discussion with local governments there about smart city opportunities. i think it is very well-time for this. whether it is in brazil or

mexico, throughout the caribbean, and the rest of south america, i think it is great. and i just wanted to say, again, thanks again for the panel and i want to specifically thank ambassador nichols for all of his leadership and support. ms. sader: andrew, i wanted to ask you the same question. what is one recommendation for cities to adopt responsible digital tools for development? i think would be interesting to showcase or try to think about it in terms of the conductivity between the federal and local government and that communication and accessibility. mr. vanjani: i will say two things, and always from a macro level now. you know, if there is one success story around latin america i think what uruguay has been doing, you know, for 15 years at least with camino, all of their work in government and open government and open data and open everything camino,

digital id, they are building a stack. the building blocks are the right ones. they are foundational building blocks, and one thing that i like that they do -- and this is kind of a referendum. is that they communicate policies and they give an opportunity to citizens and civil society and everyone to respond before they are implemented. and i know that a couple of states in the u.s. do that. i know california was doing that , to try to get maryland to do that, but it did not work out well. i think coming back from the oas and promoting democratic principles, what better direct democracy than that? that is completely inclusive, right? you may not take all of the comments from the public, but you at least consider them. i think that is great, you know? i will be something we have to consider across america and in the united states as well. to that point, i would also say

that when you build smart cities , i see that as more the level of application level or presentation level. i'm referring to the os side network layer. but connectivity is layer one. i'm not saying you have to have every one connected 100%, but you have to at the national perspective camino, whether it is programs like first snap or maryland first for -- what you call it -- first responders. you have to have good broadband conductivity. the second layer is really on the digital identity space. this is what indy's stack has done very well. the third layer is real-time payment processes as well. either it is upi.

this is what we brazilians do. every american word we use, we had an e. cbdc's. the third layer is a data exchange layer. this doesn't have to be designed at the national level as long as it is well-architected. you know, what api's that are interoperable. i think those are four basic layers that have to start at the national level. for any smart city, you know, initiative to work well. ms. sader: safa, final comments and one recommendation for cities? ms. edwards: there is this opportunity for cities to adapt the level of understanding needed for the many versus the few. and creating, you know, engaging in this design process that is responsive to that. acknowledging that everyone is going to interact with this

technology in different ways, so how do we make sure they have the understanding to engage with it in a way that is safe also reporting for them? ms. sader: i think we are wrapping with lots of recommendations and action-oriented points for us to take from this conversation to move it forward for cities. the state level, and in the federal as well, and the global. i wanted to thank you, keith, for joining us. andrew, suffolk, thank you for being here. i would like to also thank all of the speakers we had here today joining us. and a special thank you to the u.s. state department for the partnership, and congratulations again for the state of our cities initiative. there is a lot for us to do and i would like to thank all of you joining us in person, as well as those joining us virtually for coming to the atlantic council and listening to us here. and see you next time. thank you. have a good one. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the

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