IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 28

mixed reality tools and in-telli--
gent systems to co-create new
meta-narratives across popula-
tions and geographies.
■■ Explore methods that leverage
unprecedented transparency,
mass collaboration, intelligent
systems, and mixed reality to
build collective narratives that
draw on emotions and create
credible and legitimate shared
views of reality.
■■ Develop automated programs to
monitor the sources, spread, and
uptake of fake news. In parallel,
develop transdisciplinary initia-
tives to empower individuals to
evaluate the veracity of news.

Enabling Conditions
For any of the levers of change out-
lined above to be effective at driv-
ing the societal transformations
needed to build a climate-safe and
equitable world, a number of nearterm actions are needed. One of
the most important is closing the
digital divide. Over half of the global
population is online, with over 4.1

close the divide, it will be important
to disseminate low-cost solutions.
One example is mobile broadband,
which requires less investment in
hardware than fixed broadband and
provides the highest rate of growth
in Internet users [93].
Closing the digital divide is essen-
tial, but it is only one of many condi-
tions needed to enable society to
unleash positive digital disruptions
and steer them towards transforma-
tive system changes. We identified
eight priority actions to create the
enabling conditions for leveraging
the digital age to achieve a climatesafe and equitable world. These
actions are described in the Montre-
al Statement on Sustainability in the
Digital Age (this issue). They include:

billion Internet users in 2019 [8].
But access varies widely by region
and population (see Figure 4). For
example, Africa and Asia have a
28% and 48% Internet penetration
rate respectively, much lower than
Europe's rate of 82.5% [8].
Two main drivers of the digital
divide are the educational and eco-
nomic disparities between coun-
tries [92]. The economic benefits of
the accelerating rate of technology
uptake also vary by region. Projec-
tions indicate that the economies
of some regions (e.g., North -America
and China) stand to gain more
of economic benefits from the AI
boom than other regions (e.g., Afri-
ca and Latin America), due to their
high rates of access, investment,
and adoption [17].
As commercialization of AI,
blockchain, and derivative technolo-
gies rapidly expands, the dispar-
ity between the digital haves and
have-nots will likely grow, unless, as
a society, we make eliminating the
digital divide a global priority for sus-
tainable and equitable growth. To

Establish a social contract for
the digital age.
■■ Promote inclusion as a touch-
stone of the digital age.
■■ Expand open access to high-pub-
lic-value data.
■■ Establish foundational standards
for the digital sector.
■■

FIGURE 4. Percentage of population connected to the Internet by sub-region. Internet penetration rate ranges from 95% in parts of
Europe and America to 12% in Central Africa. Darker circles indicate a higher rate of connection ([91], compiled from multiple sources).

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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JUNE 2020

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

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