Digital innovation to combat COVID-19
In the midst of the global pandemic, digital technologies have captured our imagination for their potential to support us in the fight against COVID-19. Before the current COVID- health, education, social and economic crisis, the most visible uses of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, have been their applications in entertainment, in increasing productivity and convenience.
Now, however, the potential of digital technologies to go beyond that have been revealed to the larger public. Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) help to expedite the development of a vaccine; predict which public health measures would be most effective; and to keep the public updated with scientific information. They have also allowed us to move much of our lives online, maintaining economic and education systems when most people are staying home and helping us to remain connected to one another.
Yet, not all regions and social groups are equally able to harness the potential of digital technologies to combat the virus. According to the State of Broadband 2019 Report, although internet user penetration rate is 51.2%, it is only 45% in developing countries and 20% in least developed countries. The digital and knowledge divides have always existed, but in a situation where many people have to stay home, it transforms from a disadvantage to a debilitating disability. Work is needed in the long-term to increase access to digital technologies, and in the short-term, to ensure that lack of access does not translate into an inability to continue daily life.
This page features some of the initiatives that UNESCO and its partners have undertaken to harness the potential of digital technologies against COVID-19, including in regions which are digitally isolated. In the long-term, the COVID-19 crisis reminds us that we should nurture the socially-beneficial applications of digital technologies and focus on improving access and uses in countries where it is lacking.
AI Enabled Public Health Mobile Application to Manage the COVID-19 Pandemic
Harnessing AI to mitigate COVID-19 while protecting fundamental rights
UNESCO is supporting efforts to develop and deploy AI-enabled mobile app solutions to mitigate COVID-19 which respect fundamental rights, including data protection and privacy. A number of countries have developed and deployed mobile applications with different levels of Human Rights safeguards for users. UNESCO is supporting efforts of the Quebec Institute for Artificial Intelligence (MILA ), a non to develop and deploy an open source peer to peer solution, currently one of the rare solutions that protectis fundamental rights related to data protection and privacy.
The application will empower individuals to monitor their own health by alerting them if they have crossed paths with an infected individual, provide them with a real-time evaluation of their exposure to COVID-19, provide behavioural messages, in consultation with UNESCO, , and facilitate easy customised access to information, all while maintaining the highest standards of data and privacy protection. It will also facilitate the work of public health authorities by providing path-tracing information of voluntary, self-disclosing users, providing input into informed data-driven decisions about social distancing measures.
More broadly, UNESCO advocates for the assessment of privacy, non-discrimination, and personal data protection in all ongoing initiatives which use AI to counter COVID-19.
Mobilising young innovators against COVID-19: partnering for a Hackathon
From 6 to 30 April 2020, UNESCO, IBM and SAP are joining forces in the organization of the global hackathon CodeTheCurve. The initiative calls for young developers, innovators, data scientists, and designers to use their digital skills, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, and to team up to inspire digital solutions to current and future pandemic-related challenges.
Through this online event, UNESCO and its partners aim to highlight how times of crisis might also engender opportunities to rethink our daily lives: imagine different forms of education and learning, step up efforts to combat the spread of disinformation, improve the quality of information in an ethical manner, and reinforce scientific cooperation at a global scale.
Participants will also have the opportunity to receive training on innovative solutions from the various organizations brought together under the umbrella of CodeTheCurve. Please find more information here.
From 6 to 30 April 2020, UNESCO, IBM and SAP are joining forces in the organization of the global hackathon CodeTheCurve. The initiative calls for young developers, innovators, data scientists, and designers to use their digital skills, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, and to team up to inspire digital solutions to current and future pandemic-related challenges.
Through this online event, UNESCO and its partners aim to highlight how times of crisis might also engender opportunities to rethink our daily lives: imagine different forms of education and learning, step up efforts to combat the spread of disinformation, improve the quality of information in an ethical manner, and reinforce scientific cooperation at a global scale.
Participants will also have the opportunity to receive training on innovative solutions from the various organizations brought together under the umbrella of CodeTheCurve. Please find more information here.
Fostering OERs to support learners and educational professionals in online learning
Given that the pandemic has caused widespread school closures in 185 countries and 89.4% of learners forced to stay home, OERs are important to supplementing formal online classes and even temporarily serving as the main form of education for those who are unable to access online learning. Many educational institutions, both schools and private publishing and assessment companies have opened up their resources so that students in quarantine who may not otherwise have access to learning resources at this time may still continue to learn. UNESCO has also identified a number of MOOCs and OERs which can provide online courses and self-directed learning content through both mobile and desktop platforms.
In the framework of the UNESCO OER Recommendation, adopted by UNESCO Member States in November 2019, UNESCO is enhancing cooperation with the OER Community to support openly licensed teaching and learning materials. UNESCO has made a call to the OER Community working on the implementation of the UNESCO OER recommendation to collect and share information on Covid-19 resources, to support learning during the Covid-19 crisis.
With a view to supporting teaching and learning materials developments to enhance the capacity of instructors delivering online UNESCO has made available openly licensed tools that can be used by Governments and institutions that can be used for the implementation of the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers OER – Hub. These resources have online openly licensed resources to support teacher training for the use of ICTs. With regard to persons with disabilities, and online education, UNESCO also has an openly licensed tool ‘Learning for All: guidelines on the inclusion of learners with disabilities in open and distance learning’.
UNESCO has joined IIITE in the OER4Covid initiative launched by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) and the OER Chair in New Zealand. The objective of this initiative is to provide support for those making a transition to online learning using OER during the Covid-19 pandemic.
UNESCO also provides openly licensed media and information literacy messages on the Covid-19 crisis on public health and social media messaging that is available in all UN Languages and transmitted through social media platforms.
How to support the use of OER, with a focus on developing capacity, policy, inclusion and sustainability are also part of the themes in the UNESCO's CodetheCurve Hackathon challenge.
Call for Joint Action: Supporting Learning and Knowledge Sharing through Open Educational Resources (OER)
In response to the massive disruption of education due to the Covid-19 pandemic affecting 1.57 billion learners in 191 countries, UNESCO has issued a Call to support learning and knowledge sharing through Open Educational Resources (OER) world . The Call is co-signed by Moez Chakchouk and Stefania Giannini, respectively Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, and for Education at UNESCO, and encourages implementation of the OER Recommendation, which identifies actions in five main areas: Capacity building and use of OER; Developing supportive policy; effective, inclusive and equitable access to quality OER; Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER; fostering and facilitating international cooperation. Read the Statement
In addition, UNESCO Education Sector has developed resources that are accessible on the page COVID-19 Educational Disruption and Response.
Crowd-Sourcing Creative Content to Fight the COVID-19 “Infodemic”
#DontGoViral campaign
The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a viral load of often deadly disinformation that has been described by the United Nations Secretary General as humanity's other “enemy” in this crisis.
Emerging technologies have become a battleground to widely disseminate online disinformation, but also to identify and help contain it. UNESCO research has identified nine key themes prevalent in the “disinfodemic” about the COVID-19 crisis. The themes range from false information about COVID-19’s origins, incidence, symptoms and cures, through to political attacks on journalists. The formats adopted include the familiar modes of highly emotive narrative constructs and memes; fabricated, fraudulently altered, or decontextualized images and videos; disinformation infiltrators and orchestrated campaigns, and; bogus websites, data sets and sources.
To contribute to tackling this issue, UNESCO, in partnership with the Innovation for Policy Foundation (i4Policy), launched the #DontGoViral online campaign in Africa to crowdsource local openly-licensed content from artists and cultural entrepreneurs to inform communities about COVID-19 (see UNESCO news item). The campaign addresses the urgent need for culturally relevant and openly licensed information in local African languages to facilitate awareness-raising about how to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 on the African Continent.
Through UNESCO’s Offices in the African continent and the i4Policy community of more than 170 innovation hubs in 45 countries across Africa, this campaign is empowering communities across Africa to host, mobilize, and develop information campaigns to support national and global health agencies to reach the most at-risk communities and to combat the spread of disinformation.
The #DontGoViral campaign is designed to harness artists’ influence and the role of the cultural and creative industries in awareness-raising. Artists can share and amplify crucial information among fans and followers, reaching large audiences by using their talent and diverse forms of cultural expressions to engage with people in response to the crisis. UNESCO is actively supporting artists to reach communities most at risk including offline.
As part of this campaign, partnerships have been established with both African media outlets and global outlets, notably the BBC World Service, who has agreed to pass messages produced as part of the campaign on all available platforms (TV, radio, web,etc).
Other initiatives to counter disinformation
UNESCO will launch two new policy briefs to combat the COVID-19 “disinfodemic” available in several languages. The policy briefs give insight into what responses are available, including technical and algorithmic responses; monitoring, fact-checking responses; legislative and policy responses; curatorial responses by platforms and online services. The UNESCO policy briefs address ways to strengthen and protect the right to information through countering the contamination of disinformation and by empowering global citizens with digital skills and literacy.
The policy briefs draw upon and will inform ongoing work by an international consortia of researchers to address disinformation globally, commissioned to be published in September by the Working Group on Freedom of Expression and Disinformation of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development.
Enhancing access to the Internet
Access to the Internet, and with the current uses, to Broadband, has become decisive and vital for our societies and all spheres of our life.
On the 3rd of April 2020, the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development members launched the Agenda for Action: For Faster and Better Recovery outlining immediate measures that stakeholders can adapt across three pillars: Resilient Connectivity, Affordable Access, and Safe Use for Informed and Educated Societies. The agenda is a framework for the Commission's 50+ Commissioners and their organizations to share and support each other’s initiatives, make new commitments, and foster collaboration and partnership combatting COVID-19 through digital innovation and transformation.
More countries are seeking to further enhance their Internet, and the Internet Universality ROAM-X Indicators (Rights, Openness, Access and a Multistakeholder approach) offer a helpful framework for governments or organisations, which wish to enhance the Internet and use digital technology to combat the virus and its impact. The ROAM-X approach has also been applied to AI in UNESCO’s publication ‘Steering AI and Advanced ICTs for Knowledge Societies’, which provides a number of key recommendations on ensuring that use of AI is human-centred. UNESCO will continue to engage the governments, private sector, Internet intermediaries, technical community and academia to ensure adequate safeguards of privacy and personal data protection are put in place in AI related apps and countering measures.