What’s cooking in Geneva’s digital kitchen?
Throughout 2025, the International Telecommunication Union celebrates its 160th anniversary. As the UN agency for digital technologies, its mandate touches all parts of society.
This blog about digital cooperation is the third in a series for International Geneva on ITU’s contribution on pressing global issues, set in a city with a long tradition of multilateral cooperation.
Digital tools are part of our everyday lives, shaping how we gather news, purchase goods and services, manage our finances, extend our learning and more.
Yet the global cooperation making this daily use possible is little known. The kitchen for digital cooperation is in Geneva, bringing together international agencies, non-governmental organizations, research institutes and diplomats. They narrow digital divides; ramp up digital cooperation; and ensure digital transformation that is safe, and secure for everyone.
If Geneva is the kitchen for digital diplomacy and development, ITU is one of its most experienced cooks.
From the days of Morse code to today’s phones, radios, TVs and satellites – through 160 years of geopolitical, economic and technical change – ITU has focused on safe, secure and inclusive connectivity. ITU’s quiet work behind the scenes has extended communications to billions of users. ITU has won Emmy awards for its technical work in television, and its radio regulations enable mobile phones and the Internet and guide satellites around the globe. Its standards make connectivity more resilient, interoperable and accessible.
ITU’s ingredients? It works with 194 member states through the Geneva-based diplomatic community and through national digital ministries, as well as with over 1000 private sector members and academia.
ITU is not alone in Geneva’s digital kitchen. ITU cooks with Geneva-based international agencies to address digital aspects of standards, intellectual property, e-commerce, inclusive trade, human rights, weather and disaster management.
Global cooperation is not always in fashion. But digital use crosses borders and is deeply embedded in our societies. Harnessing its potential and managing its threats is a shared imperative.
Riding the AI boom
During the COVID-19 pandemic, digital tools were a lifeline – to work, study, gather news and stay in contact with loved ones. Then, Chat GPT arrived on the heels of the pandemic in late 2022, bringing artificial intelligence-powered services to millions. People turned to AI-powered tools to organize data and business processes, and to research, write, edit, design and promote content rapidly.
Public awareness of artificial intelligence shot up, as well as investment in artificial intelligence research and applications. Big companies quickly followed with upgraded digital strategies to stay competitive, while beginning to address trust, security, and intellectual property, according to the latest McKinsey business survey. The trend is set to continue. Quantum technologies, combined with AI tools, are poised to open another wave of digital innovation.
Ramping up digital cooperation
Meanwhile, in Geneva, the digital kitchen has been bubbling. Already back in 2003, ITU organized the first universal connectivity summit: the World Summit on the Information Society.
In 2017, ITU launched the AI for Good Global Summit, capturing AI’s potential to accelerate progress on global development priorities and goals. This annual event has become the world’s top showcase for responsible AI and a vital space to discuss ethics and governance questions.
ITU fosters cooperation on digital issues through a wide range of projects and initiatives. For example, it works with digital and space regulators to address responsible use of finite space resources; it partners with businesses and researchers to tackle the digital industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. The organization also works closely with submarine cable owners, experts and governments to find ways to protect this critical infrastructure, which carries about 99% of all international data traffic zigzagging underwater across the globe.
In 2024, world leaders at the United Nations adopted a Global Digital Compact to advance cooperation on AI and other technologies. ITU is turning up the heat with an ad hoc “Geneva Digital Kitchen Group”. The group is developing a Geneva Contribution Plan to see where it can make the most impact. The aim is to assemble a recipe book of frameworks, best practices, resources, and guidelines to support digital transformation, complemented by training and capacity building.
Building capacity to manage cyberthreats
If less than one billion people were online in 2003, an estimated 5.5 billion are connected today. If digital transformation can accelerate progress towards, cyberthreats erode trust and confidence in digital technologies.
Developing countries especially face a cyber capacity gap, as ITU notes in its Global Cybersecurity Index. ITU is working with some 160 countries on cybersecurity strategies and capacity building. It also works on child protection strategies, submarine cable protection initiatives, measures to stop GPS spoofing, and standards for countering deepfakes with watermarking.
As a result, 152 countries conducted cyber-awareness campaigns between 2021 and 2024; 139 countries now have a Computer Incident Response Team; 94 countries have a Child Online Protection strategy with associated initiatives; and 153 countries have school curricula that address cybersecurity.
This year, ITU will bring together over 140 countries in a global CyberDrill, to help countries be more prepared to manage cyber incidents.
Digital access for a safer world
Since its inception, ITU’s strength has been to forge partnerships and technical consensus to narrow digital divides. On the kitchen burners: ensuring connectivity for schools and hospitals, reaching girls at a young age to address the tech gender gap and developing new infrastructure funding models for least developed countries.
Building trust
If today’s deepfakes, misinformation or other cyberthreats have you longing to turn off the kitchen burners, think again. The only feasible way forward is together. Technology has permeated every aspect of our society. Digital cooperation across borders is key if we want to bring the benefits of technology to all. ITU, with its long Geneva-based history, plays an essential multilateral role to build trust and forge consensus in challenging times.
Global Geneva’s digital diplomacyThe digital world continues to come to Geneva – carrying on a tradition of cooperation and partnerships in a neutral setting. “Here in International Geneva,” said Ambassador Raymond Loretan, President of the Diplomatic Club of Geneva, “we share a collective responsibility to promote constructive and proactive dialogue, ensuring the preservation of the principle and practices that have sustained global cooperation.” Geneva hosts the world’s ecosystem for digital diplomacy to narrow digital divides. Geneva’s diplomatic community is one of the world’s largest, and more than 40 000 delegates and diplomats attend ITU events every year at its Geneva headquarters alone. ITU works closely with diplomats and now offers cyber diplomacy guidance. ITU also collaborates with an extensive local network. These include prestigious universities and research bodies that conduct research in science, business and diplomacy, the many UN entities active on the digital front, and nongovernmental organizations that focus on digital coordination. Mark your agendas: 8-11 July, AI for Good Global Summit and World Summit on the Information Society 20-year review, Palexpo. Reflecting an upsurge of interest in these two major events, they have been moved in 2025 from the International Conference Centre (CICG) and ITU headquarters to a larger venue, Palexpo. |
Follow this article series signed by ITU as we explore their 160-year history, emerging priorities, and ongoing work to build the digital future for all.