secretary is facing policy both in the department of state to launch the program and that empowering local governments. the digital agenda for transformation for those of you who are acronym nerds, it translates data for cities initiative but more on that in a second. you can responsible about technologies already helping strengthen local governments. throughout the session today online and can studios from across the region adaptation.

science and technology technology innovation regional director for latin america review development. latin american center.

we watch the advantage counsel motivated in our responsibility to drive responsibility and big and you responsible ways. work with programs like the latin american center and the work across the region. it is my honor to introduce terry brian jennifer marcus moderated by the event latin america subject one of our advisory members for that. i will be joined by secretary

nichols. it's really important day and announced this digital agenda. this is really exciting to goes back to the partnership have the state department and a range of different issues together and that hamas not to long ago urbanized in the world second only to north america it had a europe, asia, africa, louisiana and across the hemisphere nearly ten people lived in cities this was the rationale for server cities last year the leader

level. the first ever in america's, the momentum and excitement in ration of that city officials work on the front line delivering on promises. how good and effective domestically is fraternities. again, welcome fully talk in depth, i would like to explain this a little more. what challenges and opportunities and digital tools across the region let's look he

works with local governments across the region let's. >> you for having me. this is a great opportunity the citizen of our region. going back pandemic one education and and lack of access to other things. beyond that challenges with things like delivery of public

services, addressing issues of crime and in our region. you got talking about los angeles 2022 i go back one event earlier the general assembly the year before which started to really incorporate an agenda our goals. we had five pillars and build on that. note that the are building on his immediately number of countries in our region and real talk about what we delivered to

average citizens the simplest denver a year ago wasn't opportunity to hear from all private sector we deliver for the people in these regions. they are going to hear from experts leaders in the region talk while they are delivering transportation, são paulo access to and lighting all of those things look at the makes it more

easily accountability as far as the approach going on. >> knowledge of over supposed to end think about, we talk about data information public services and large segments of the state are open to contact as well. >> mark one of the most incredibly important topics because of privacy ultimately

will get information miss you. it is great to be here. we have long-standing cooperation start the security. how is it that we put this all out state and active funding and services? ultimately say opportunity have

this. the basics of upfront cyber sick hygiene national cybersecurity's figure out who is charge obligated u.s. but we see strides over the last five years and they have about showed up with a variety of issues and make sure it is secure but security comes from basic security but also who's running the system. we do need to pay attention to that and it's one reason the u.s. government is investing invest region.

>> i'd like to go nate talk about the transformation. what is the initiative and why is it important? what are you hoping to achieve? >> this is $4.75 million that's going to go in areas debated excelerator projects. as building effort and financing opportunities for projects. this is going to allow individuals solicit find new

organizations and ideas about an element of their urban coming in for financing and training capacity building and all those things age and deliver more rapidly. you want a better minute and a better idea around that. access to finding perfecting your project and sharpening it and available throughout our region. feldman financing operation in those efforts as well.

what does it look like box the partners around the hemisphere we are starting fear but the atlantic council but will be able to engage in bringing heaters around the hemisphere talking about this and their crucial partners will have an opportunity to show going forward and going to people where they are. >> the data, encouraging long-term use secure technology? >> it is vital when you think about how you ensure saturday's property use the information they are collecting?

cities have guarantees to ensure security, verification of data you have unreliable providers conducted concern for people with your face is numeral the characteristics the last couple of years and other efforts. >> as i said, i am excited we are able to show up and say here are resources, here is capacity building so make sure on behalf

of them to deliver the services they require mentioned they are building on this work over the last on how you let's not make the over 70 thousand citizens profits.

put guardrails in short the information to the way the values held here. >> is an opportunity for best practices. michael will also know this is incredibly important, it can just be government. you have to build a look who are companies and how to take academia, it needs to be filled in from the outset. as the idea that the role of the

that includes citizens having a voice in the technology. the house my thoughts great part make sure they are doing the the smartest greater francie, the importance of cybersecurity and trust to put. online, but see our advice but the have adventures who want to reach out and onto us directly. it is for cities of great

opportunity seven your ideas and. in your city, i'm sure there's a lot of who have ideas. build close work with their municipal leaders and what the private sector develop the ideas over training thought incubated work and i expect projects. projects thousand of all those things you wanted find ways to

bring them to use. the three of the and friendship development finance corporation financing sources scale but. >> incredibly exciting initiatives the department invaded to address the bottles of apartment credible opportunities region, thank you for joining us moderate the

conversation. [sobbing] that much,. [applause] [applause] [inaudible] the first thing i would like to do is extend a true things, not

the medic they but the real thanks to people living (. give yourself applause for being here thanks to those joining us for those here in person just outside the road are listening devices if you would like to have simultaneous. >> we just heard from two u.s.

government officials spearheading this initiative and replied details to bring more opportunities to latin america and the caribbean in addition to access but physical but the people and undergoing a whirlwind of changes over time. people are seeking patient on a video of a low but prototyped that house household chores take care of your pet hundred energy flux and also some we have a

great deal of work to. experiences of this and the little card.

structure modernization of services another layer of for the service. focusing in closing development gaps between urban and rural areas and talking about that services.

they key to all of her being here. >> modernizing services so what made it possible? what made it continue to survive? >> thank you for inviting me to participate according to make two partners. government stability throughout time and former mayor

partnership with the private sector in the loosely city of minus artist and innovative talent and i would like to provide you in general framework.

because a.i. will have the market and expect it. and the city the worst thing is i have these things in the

evolution and revolution. we have to be humble after information. today is written on stone. we need critical thinking.

intelligence of when is aris. how does that help reduce physical but we developed it during the pandemic the covid pandemic is first and you can see him going to spend two days here. but we know what programs there are in the answer you with different proposals.

a lot of information was exchanged or security and safety and it has allowed more than 1000 cases and we have not mapped have a note being. the information we have is sometimes criminal and a stolen

car and one a day at least. that will help us reduce artificial intelligence questions requested by the government. it's amazing the indicators you have and replicate them. we have citizens doing incredible things with the

segway an incredible story or she the most vulnerable. i would love to hear how you did on your project. it's an honor to be here not only in urban areas we are asked about differences and.

we have economic inequality. we are moving forward for sure. part of our commitment was to make sure technology reaches those who look needed only want to step in from growing.

the administration. and we can start ended can be done online. it's about educating people and a great opportunity. how technology can be used in a

monster that cannot be controlled and may cannot read wanting work both at the same time and develop a culture of transformation. we are really liking behind determination to spread with an open government very important

one, thank you for your work, this initiative launched today is very important opportunities. we will add to the let me go back to washington you have a great deal of experience in a lot of successful examples thank

you for your invitation. the difficult part is i to bear in mind. i am a member of the board of the group working on the most important part of technology. we find out. thank you like when you're riding a bicycle you think you

are going well you like 5g network doesn't leave the internet it's not in terms of

infrastructure. to make sure protect. the nail on the head. we are at the bottom are ready.

our of her neighbors not about copying, it's not coming together main element is economy. everyone uses the word use it in indonesia. we have to come together

everything. the most one thing. >> track and initiative exactly was saying about that ecosystem the foundation everyone. we need to get on the same page so we are all working with the

more we standardize, the better it will be all of us we don't have a lot of time for the ultimacy of to ask getting this person because he been working on it for so long. your suggestions you would typically beginning put up technology? one group going down the other

group. behind the happy reach out because we have this initiative quickly tends to be slow to

focus on english as a language so we have bilingual education graduating this year and he goes hand-in-hand so this will help undergoing in the centers the non-political opportunities of

will these are your focusing on only what the.

>> it is important. [inaudible] is truly can't copy and paste but at a minimum where we are and everything.

and so the plane that had been. and the strategy. the dialogue to analyze properly. the girl. thank you, secretary. it's important to bring decision-makers and leaders together.

look technology. or a country but how much does the idea because? nothing. the value and claim nothing.

and he lionized. iron out camps and bureaucracy. it is your implementation. shareholder district as we

speak. were going to implement the thank you for being here and thank you for joining us.

>> attended counsel. it's great to see the city of cleanest areas. and improvement figure.

the national area. another example in mexico losing their own data to lucas' equip.

it general part. ...

nail the conversation is supposed to emphasize the responsibility we have an adopting these technologies and for that i'm delighted to be here joined by an esteemed group of experts who have taken responsibility of adopting the digital security in america. the regional director for latin america and trade and development agency and responsible for developing and supervising activities in the region for priority infrastructure projects and opportunities for u.s. experts. to the right of me is my fellow brazilian director of the department of information technology services and he has a long career including the

department technology and he joins us here for this conversation not last but not least my colleague the director of the initiative within the technology service where she coordinate people to protect program capacity building efforts designed to upscale policymakers rate down silos and develop the next generation of global technology. basically everything we have party touched on. so to kick us off i want to turn to you keith assistant secretary nichols announced the launch of the digital agenda for transformation of the data initiative and to help us kick off this discussion how well do you feel trade -- >> i want to thank you for moderating this great panel today.

it's a pleasure to join the atlantic council had thank you very much for hosting us today and especially to our partners at the department of state for all their support and leadership in this space. we are very proud to help implement the data initiative that we have launched today for ustda has long partnered with local governments in the region and this initiative will deepen and expand our partnership to advance smart infrastructure. specifically our role within this initiative as i mentioned is actually part of your handout as well we are grateful to receive the funding from the state department or agency americans for $3 million for projects preparation particularly focused on this space. when ustda may be -- we can provide even more grants for this space for feasibility

studies technical assistance and pilot projects that can help advance smart cities projects in the region for opening up the door for u.s. technologies and solutions to provide some great advancements in this area. we have been getting more examples but as one of the main implementors of this initiative we are very proud to be a part of this in the smart cities face. thank you. i'm sure that many of our partners and local government around the region want to learn more about how this program will affect them directly and how we can learn more and assistant secretary brian nichols shared the e-mails to get more information and that will be important. andrew turning to you across the region the smallest burro towns to the largest urban centers receive implementation of technology applied to service

delivery across-the-board and in many areas. vs. from on line systems to full scale security monitoring systems that they there are many existing projects that we see all across latin america. how quickly has these new technologies and tools been inc. into the region and what do we mean by the responsible adoption of these tools? b yeah so let me think he was well valentina and the panelists. it's a great event and all the right folks are in the room and virtually and we hope to have a very productive discussion. over the past decade or if not longer there has been a lot of digital in the area in the caribbean mainly and i think one thing is to have the digital

adoption. i've seen also a little bit of implementation on some of these initiatives and i was talking earlier with keith on the brochure of the data for cities and they are all pilots and investments that have started with pilots and i'm curious to know if we are measuring metrics on how many of those we received and i don't know whether that's happening. i do see a lot of investment in smart cities and governments and i'm not sure whether they are scaling to the rural areas. and we talked about this earlier it's creating the ministry is what melissa said a digital divide digital divide is expanding in a way and it could be for a variety of reasons maybe for lack of connectivity and maybe it's rural which i have learned in maryland you would think we are well connected that i traveled to pockets of maryland with senator

mulholland in ben karty and we are not as ready as we thought we were. and so a couple of things i would keep in mind is implementation. a couple of us think from the oas perspective and our core pillars are to promote democratic principals and protect human rights in development and security across the region. i also don't see a lot of our linemen at the national level perhaps from those core principals and i think the foundation should be on those core principals and from a national perspective and we talked a little bit about the data and protections, data protection and they all bring their own data and so on. what is the appetite of each nation in terms of the

sovereignty entered to national sovereignty in digital and citizen sovereignty but what i mean by that is what is, how much autonomy and control to want to have over the implementing the infrastructure as well as the data. i think those are things that we had to keep in mind as well. >> i wanted to talk to you especially on the point he just made but also as a follow-up to the conversation that we just heard about the imports the digital literacy and this is something that goes directly to your expertise here at the council but what role can education play in supporting the development of responsible governing and security standards in the adoption of these digital improvements? this is particularly important for latin americans and i walked to get to you on what the role

is and how we can make that happen. i was happy to be here as we invest in these new technologies and adopt these new technologies and also in training and education and what does that look like to maintain and use and take advantage of these new tools. technical training immediately comes to mind to protect the technology but in addition there's a need for policy and strategy training to better understand how we govern these technology and how do we leverage them. also keeping up through line that bears a responsibility here but what responsibility do we have for folks and how do we make sure we keep that as we develop policies as we develop strategies and there's an opportunity to engage folks in different organizations through that. the last piece for average people in a way what we are talking about is how do we create more and round users at because every user technology has varying levels of understanding of that. how do we create a more informed

populace that's able to take full advance is a -- pull advantage of a can hold their government accountable. i don't know how many of those actually read through everything that you are sharing with a web site that you were clicking on so i think this is part of the digital literacy experience of understanding the degree of information that you are sharing and if you're comfortable with that or not. nowadays if he. nowadays it be rejected then you don't have access to everything you want to see so this is very important in this conversation. keith speaking about the investment part and in what way has the list tda been working on the tools or development that could serve as a -- and if there any lessons you can share with us in terms of those adoptions and the responsibility and accessibility of those?

>> thank you very much and i just wanted to talk of the couple questions and are raised and i thought that was important i want to integrate that into my answer. we do follow the monitor and implementation of our projects. we are proud of our success. one of the success stories we have in this space is in jamaica with the smart streetlights and it's something assistant secretary nichols brought up in terms of the lighting and how important that is. in jamaica we have partnered with gts which is the utility there to test and pilot smart streetlights and really incorporating lapd technologies along with intelligence controls and metering capabilities. they were able to not only implement smart streetlights in kingston and montego bay but also in the rural areas so it left over 100,000 new smart

streetlights across jamaica. and going back do we are pleased and proud to be partnering with minister montenegro on the digital productivity center as you mentioned in her presentation of the last panel. these digital connectivity centers there at 10 pilots right now for the rural areas that are indigenous led utilizing solar energy and that we hope will lead to guatemala to implement over 3000 sites across central gautama. there's a divide between cities and they are such urbanization but also bringing those benefits to rural areas. obviously the topic of the day has many ongoing projects and the reason we have returned to kingston can have an ongoing pilot for smart technologies they are and we are working with the city in mexico in terms of

public transit and improving the bus system there and also we are doing that in ecuador where we are 70% of the population utilizes public transit every day to get to where they want to go so we are helping them with the intelligent transportation systems there and visited the bus control center to see how the traffic is progressing so it's very exciting to partner with great local and state and city governments which we do in the private-sector as well. again this role is critical. we are proud of the partnerships we have and we are very proud to have the opportunity to partner with more cities throughout the region. that approach is definitely one in terms of the public-private partnership and the adoption of these digital tools. andrew you have spoken publicly before about the need when

undergoing high-speed transportation particularly with the state implementation of ai policies. i wanted to posit here and ask what you mean by that and what lessons can we draw to learn about the best ways to design them and it goes into the responsibility act which is what we are talking about in the implementation and the tracking of how the metrics work in these advancements. just to clarify that's not my quote. i stole that quote from a panel brazil. it was the panel that talked about this very famous man who said something to the extent that you know we need to put better breaks on these race cars but not just to slow down but to

be able to go faster. and we want to accelerate that sharp curve in that analogy applies and they used it recently and a panel in uruguay talking about national ai strategies but it's applicable to what we are discussing today so that's what i meant by that and it's more than a balance between renovation and that conundrum that we are always part of. so i think as policymakers we had to keep a couple of things in mind. today soft technology was always outpacing the regulatory framework and now with covid and more digital adoption and with ai ai it's being exponential midges haptics at that. we have the user think policy regulations as tools for acceleration and perhaps not for her restriction. that's kind of the idea. and the other thing i would say

when i talked talk to a lot of folks as they travel different regulatory frameworks come some are more regulated than others and some are more centralized and more centralized from brazil where they are more centralized. creating an environment that is you know low in complexity and low in uncertainty. i think that helps all the stakeholders and citizens in the private-sector. what i mean by that is their many examples but i remember the days where we were talking about net neutrality and starting here in the united states and in the caribbean we talked about that in a brazil with talked about that for the past decade and here and i don't want to get into the details of net neutrality but pretty much is the internet considered a public utility or is that an information service and is the title wanner title ii and that

becomes a change from title i to title ii with respect to title i depending on the administration and whether title wanner title ii regulated words the ftc that regulates it so complicates things all over. having a good regulatory framework that simplifies things especially big boys can adjust quickly because they have the funding. small businesses that had to change their products, i will just taken note i was on the panel, not a panel. a roundtable at the world bank talking about privacy and ai a couple of months ago and i'm not going to say which agency but bg about the contradictions that exist between ddpr and the ui i which a couple of months ago and think about it ddpr created a lot of regulations for small businesses in europe and large

businesses put small businesses is sometimes cost prohibitive to change your products to a adjusted up but it's a cross-border so what impact small businesses anywhere in the world. we had to consider the economic impact as well on the the regulatory framework so that's kind of what i mean by that. and that's very interesting in that something for us to consider to consider to have conversations. we have limited time here but i think there's much more to be discussed in that and safa turning to you as government begins to adopt these new technologies what investments should be considered to protect the integrity of the systems and anticipate threats associated with the growing attacks and we touched on that at the beginning of this conversation but in addition to the digital literacy

we were talking about the education and capacity building that we were discussing but also the need to adapt to a changing environment, how do you see that being important for the integrity of this? to appreciate that call out that adoption of technology means an increasing number of attacks and we had to come to terms with that first. they will take advantage of that whether they are state or nonstate actors and the need for investment and capacity building so that we can use these services effectively but also protect them. their other policy components that are less tapped into than they should be and there's an opportunity for us to increase that their information sharing with our partnership but also peer-to-peer and other countries in other regions but there's an opportunity for us to engage on these issues and share best practices and the double down on those efforts that support international cooperation for

the abucted call out the building measures specifically because that come to mind immediately where are the clinic counsel where we are training professionals for our university training program, we are trying to get them familiar with those frameworks that exists so they can go into the workforce and try to leverage those. to see what small actions can have the inside -- impacts in cyberspace making it a more reliable and predictable place. i was just going to comment no doubt folks are working from home and every company of curt cobain has become -- covid is become a club company. the other side of cybersecurity is on the resilient side and the redundancy side. we all remember what happened with strike earlier this year. that impacted probably in the

billions of an economic impact but now that single point of failure that all these companies airports and delta i don't know how many flights were shut down for i don't know how many days that's important as well to minimize this. i heard diego talked before about the gap and we had to execute implant but i think designing these systems especially smart cities because you don't want a taxpayer and you don't want to see failures there because the impact is much higher. i think >> some time on designing these systems to minimizing the point of failure is important. i would ask another thing on the capacity building, trying to fill in the blanks here but i was talking to a friend in são paolo has become a big digital city not interoperable but they

have a lock and a couple of my friends are very don't want to say upset that they are disappointed with the communication that exists between the government and the citizens. so the need for redress right. these mechanisms and not one or the other at the ability to be able to communicate with the government. a friend of mine was saying i keep getting these speeding tickets not speeding tickets that i made a left turn here and i automatically get -- são paolo has lots of cameras and edge devices that do analysis there and do automatic payments you know and they send it directly. a lot of them malfunction. whether they malfunction or not you still get that bill and it's a long -- it takes a long time and these are small things we don't think about from the perspective of citizens, to write the dispute letter or to

go to court or whatever does, we don't have the proper redress mechanisms and on the side of the government. that's part of the capacity building that's very important to consider when i deploy the solutions as well. following on your example i think this is something we should take into consideration. and if you wrap up it the goes directly to what you are mentioning in the final round we will pose this question to all three of you. what is one set of recommendations or what is one policy change that you would suggest for cities to adopt resilient efficiency to development and keith i will start with you. it would be important for us to also think about from your perspective on the investment side but also on what we are talking about the metrics and

the ability to scale. >> we will thank you and again thanks for this panel. it's a great discussion today and i appreciate it. from our perspective yes the project preparation is key in order to have that roadmap for deploying and implementing smart solutions and technologies. and it's really critical because there are existing system so how do you integrate with existing systems and how do you protect it, how do you understand how it's going to impact the citizens? that's why it's great to have this funding under this initiative to do this type of project so cities have a roadmap. we are 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 we are seeing this in real time. we did have a great discussion

with the local government there about some of our opportunity so it's very well-timed whether it's brazil or mexico or throughout the caribbean or the mandarin mandarin countries in and the rest of south america. i think it's great and i just want to say thanks again for the panel and i appreciate particularly ambassador nickels for all of his leadership. >> i want to ask you the same question. what is one recommendation to cities adopting possible digital development and from your perspective to showcase her try to think about it in terms of the connectivity between the federal and the local government and that communication and accessibility >> e so i will say two things on a macro level now. there is one success story around the latin america uruguay

has been doing for 15 years at least with all their work in open government in open everything digital i.d.. they are building it back and building blocks are the right ones. they are the foundational building blocks and one thing that i like that they do and this is kind of a referenda. they communicate the policies is given an opportunity to citizens and civil society and everyone to respond before they are implemented and they no couple of states in the west do that and ford is doing that and we are trying to get maryland to do that as well but i thank you know coming back from a way off and the democratic principals what better direct democracy than that. that's completely inclusive then you may not think all the comments from the public but you

at least consider them and i think that's great. probably it's something we had to consider across america and to that point i would also say that when you build smart cities i see that as more on the level of application level or presentation level. i'm referring to the os network layer. connectivity is layer one and i'm not saying you had to have everyone connected 100% but i think you have two at the national perspective whether it programs like maryland first for what you call it, first responders, you have to have good broadband connectivity. the second layer is really on the digital and. estonia has done very well with

their residency. the third layer is real-time with its upi in brazil. this is what we brazilians do and every american word that we use we have a need. cbc if you want to talk about that and the 4th player is the data layer and this doesn't have to be designed at the national level as long as it's well architected with api's that are interoperable. those are for basic layers that have to start at the national level for any smart city initiative to work well. >> safa final comments in one recommendation. >> there's an opportunity for cities to adapt a level of understanding that's needed for the needs -- for the many verses

if you and engaging in a design process that's responsive to haven't technology that everyone will interact with and technology in different ways so how do we make sure we have the tools needed to engage with it >> i think we are wrapping with lots of recommendations in action and it's a lot to take from this conversation to move upward to the cities in the state level than the federal as well as the global so i want to thank you so much for joining us andrew and safa thank you for being here thank all of the guess we had here today joining us in a special thank you to the u.s. state department for the partnership for the initiative. there's a lot for us to do and i'd like to thank all of you joining us in person as well as those joining us virtually for coming to the atlantic council and we will see you next time.

thank you and have a good one. [applause]