The Spring Meeting of the Broadband Commission took place in Dubai on March 12-13. Broadband Commission convened its spring meeting to discuss among other issues, how to innovate in education through technology.

During the two-day event Commissioners had chance to attend onsite sessions of the current three Broadband Commission Working Groups. The full meeting of the Commission also revisited the issue of new broadband targets to help achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Commissioners agreed that broadband networks, services and applications have enormous potential to deliver dramatic results in education, health and socio-economic growth. It was emphasized that connecting the unconnected and generating sufficient investment opportunities for the universal deployment of broadband networks, services and applications will be a key factor in achieving all 17 global goals.

The Comission focused on the importance of adding targets to measure the utilization of selected broadband-enabled public services, the choice of statistical indicators to accurately gauge broadband access at the country and community levels, as well as the choice of data sources and methodologies for generating accurate, reliable measurement. The Commission also agreed on the importance of developing National Digital Scorecards to measure national progress towards achieving broadband targets.

The Commission’s leader and experts from government, UN agencies, civil society and a broad spectrum of business sectors will now work to formulate concrete, measurable broadband connectivity goals that could be agreed by the next full meeting of the Commission in New York in September.

Source: itu.int, broadbandcommission.org