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Prof. André Xuereb from the UM’s Department of Physics, has been selected as a member of the United Nation’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) Safeguards initiative, which is led by a working group of professionals with expertise ranging from artificial intelligence to cybersecurity and open-source technologies, and which aims to ensure the safety of the digital public infrastructure and thus help to bridge the digital divide.

 

Together with the other members of this initiative, he will be aiming to help minimise risks across layers of digital transformation while ensuring adherence to standards and regulations.

 

“Similar to the physical public infrastructure that we use everyday to travel to and from work, the digital public infrastructure, which is being developed at a very rapid speed, needs to be made safe and inclusive. This is where the UN’s Digital Public Infrastructure Safeguards initiative comes in; we will give input to the UN to assist it in guiding humanity’s collective digital future”, Prof. Xuereb told Newspoint.

 

The announcement was made by the UN following a selection process conducted in early 2024. The initiative is being conducted by six working groups composed of 43 members with diverse expertise who will be jointly developing a safeguards framework for DPI. This framework, in turn, aims to meet the growing demand in countries to build safe and inclusive DPI.

 

DPI members are commonly motivated by the belief that safe and inclusive DPI can enable societies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

 

More about the DPI members and their ongoing work can be accessed at the UN’s Digital Public Infrastructure Safeguards .