"The first State of the Digital Decade report takes stock of the EU’s progress towards a successful digital transformation for people, businesses, and the environment as set out in the Decision establishing the Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030 (“the Digital Decade Decision”). It reviews di
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gital policy developments and describes how the EU is advancing towards the agreed targets and objectives, thus outlining where the EU stands at the outset of the implementation of the Digital Decade Policy Programme. The overall analysis of the EU’s progress against the Digital Decade objectives and targets is shown in Figure 1 and the country reports presented in an annex to this report provide a more detailed picture." (Introduction)
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"Platformization has been used to describe how platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, WhatsApp and TikTok have become increasingly important for how people communicate and access information, including news. But to what extent have news media systems in different countries become platformized?
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Using online survey data from 46 countries, we show that: (a) although over 90% of internet users use at least one social platform, there are large country differences in the proportion that use them to access news; and (b) large country difference in the proportion that still go directly to news websites and apps. Furthermore, we find (c) that country differences at least partly reflect path dependency, more specifically the historic strength of the newspaper market leading to lower levels of news platformization and continued high levels of direct access. These findings show how platformization varies in different parts of the world, provide a framework for capturing how it changes over time, and highlight the potential benefits of bringing together platform studies and comparative media systems research." (Abstract)
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"This article focuses on the launch by the Chinese company Huawei of ICT academies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and Kenya especially. Existing literature shows contrasting findings concerning the impact of such formation and recruitment centres. Through high-level thematic and sentiment analyses, th
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is article examines various Huawei accounts on social networking sites (SNSs) – that is, Facebook and Twitter – in order to better assess: (1) the kind of online corporate communication unfolded by the company with particular regard to these centres; and (2) how the advertising of such centres is perceived by users. The results suggest that Huawei’s online corporate requires better fine-tuning with local SNSs’ users." (Abstract)
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"[...] digital divide has demonstrated the urgency of our vision of building an inclusive digital economy and made it even more critical than ever before. UNCDF’s strategy, ‘Leaving No One Behind in the Digital Era’ launched in 2019, UNCDF continues to work with the government, private sector,
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and academia to catalyse innovations and scale digital solutions that address systemic constraints in the social and economic sectors. This guide aims to empower trainers and other stakeholders in implementing the digital and financial Literacy initiatives including specifications for devices delivered under the Digital Literacy Program as well as information on their configuration, setup and general management. There is also useful information on the procedures for sending and receiving money via mobile money followed by procedures for doing a mobile Money business. This manual describes the digital literacy curriculum and offers useful information on its usage by the trainers." (Foreword)
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"In this toolkit, our focus is on the use of mobile phones to the maximum benefit of women, men, youth, smallholder farmers and refugees, to enable them access digital financial services." (Background, page 11)
"Wie so häufig in der langen Geschichte des technischen Fortschritts sind auch die Entwicklungen auf dem Feld der KI von großen Hoffnungen und mindestens ebenso großen Befürchtungen begleitet. Was tatsächlich neu ist: Erstmals fragen sich auch akademisch ausgebildete „Wissensarbeiter“, ob e
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s ihre Jobs noch lange geben wird. Waren es früher körperlich anstrengende Arbeiten, die Menschen an Maschinen übertrugen, sind es heute Übersetzungen, Recherchen oder komplexe Analysen. Was viele dabei gleichermaßen fasziniert und gruselt, ist die Fähigkeit der KI, zu lernen und das erworbene Wissen direkt anzuwenden. In einer populären Vorstellung ist der Schritt zum „Erwachen“ der KI, zur Herausbildung eines eigenen Willens, dann nur noch ein kleiner. Dies mag eine dystopische Übertreibung sein. Doch auch ohne autonomes Bewusstsein ist KI ein mächtiges Instrument. Mit ihrer Hilfe lassen sich Bilder und Stimmen täuschend echt fälschen, was die Gefahr von Deep Fakes erhöht und damit dem demokratischen Diskurs empfindlich schaden kann. Auch können bestehende Vorurteile algorithmisch fortgeschrieben werden, was mit Blick auf predictive policing oder soziale Scoring-Verfahren höchst problematisch ist. Neben der politischen Regulierung ist es daher vor allem wichtig, den mündigen Umgang mit KI zu fördern. Ob Künstliche Intelligenz am Ende „Gutes“ oder „Schlechtes“ bewirkt, liegt in unseren eigenen Händen. Denn es ist die Maschine, die von uns lernt, nicht andersherum." (Editorial)
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"The survey found that 13% of respondents’ organizations are very familiar with Gen AI, while an additional 46% possess a basic awareness. Among those who stated they had basic to good familiarity with Gen AI, 38% reported using it either daily or very frequently. The most common use of Gen AI was
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for research and idea generation, followed by content creation & copy editing, and translation. In terms of the platform, ChatGPT was by far the most widely used, followed by Bing AI, Midjourney, and Dall-E. The majority of respondents (94%) stated that they found Gen AI to be either very useful or somewhat useful. Furthermore 67% of respondents view the future of Gen AI as either very promising (22%) or promising (45%)." (Key findings, page 1)
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"This Charter outlines normative directions and an action agenda for a feminist approach to digital transformation, based on wide-ranging consultations with nearly 100 participants from the Global South. It calls for key principles of digital governance – openness, freedom and security – to serv
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e as a guide in attaining constructive pluralism, equitable and just societies, and flourishing futures across our planet. It asserts that the UN Global Digital Compact must secure state and corporate accountability for protecting women’s human rights in the digital age, a new global social contract for a socially just digital transition, and institutional arrangements to ensure network and data resources become part of the commons." (Title page)
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