Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.

Technology transforms people's lives. From mitigating poverty to simplifying processes, ending corruption to providing better services, technology is omnipresent. It has become the single-most important instrument of human progress.

There's so much happening with the youth looking at local or national problems and solving them with innovation and technology. This is what startup success means.

We must develop open source systems that enhance trust and transparency. We must build quality data centres free from biases, we must democratise technology and create people centre applications. We must address concerns related to cyber security, disinformation and deepfakes. We must also ensure that technology is rooted in local ecosystems for it to be effective and useful. Loss of jobs is AI's most feared disruption, but history has shown that work does not disappear due to technology, only its nature changes. We need to invest in skilling and re-skilling our people for an AI-driven future.

AI is developing at an unprecedented scale and speed and being adapted and deployed even faster. There is also a deep interdependence across borders. Therefore, there is a need for collective global efforts to establish governance and standards that upload our shared values, address risks, and build trust. But governance is not just about managing rifts and rivalries. It is also about promoting innovation and deploying it for the global good. So we must think deeply and discuss openly about innovation and governance.

The pace at which people are taking to digital technology defies our stereotypes of age, education, language and income.