ASEAN – Australia Digital Trade Standards Initiative – Workshop 2 2019 Workshop Report

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Background

The second workshop of the ASEAN-Australia Digital Trade Standards Initiative for 2019 was

delivered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 September 2019.

This was one of three delivered by Standards Australia in 2019 to staff of National Standards

Bodies (NSBs) in ASEAN and their valued stakeholders, as part of the Second Phase of work of

the ASEAN-Australia Digital Trade Standards Initiative. The Initiative aims to expand bilateral

political and economic linkages between ASEAN and Australia.

The workshops seek to support recommendations identified in the 2018 Recommendations

Report published on completion of Phase One of the Initiative, focusing especially on:

• Recommendation 3: Raise awareness of digital trade and international digital trade

standards through education to stakeholders across ASEAN and Australia and

• Recommendation 5: National Standards Body institutional strengthening and

capacity building for improved standardisation processes.

The workshops also contribute to two End of Program Outcomes (EOPO) for the Initiative:

• EOPO 1: ASEAN Member States more aware of benefits of digital trade, digital trade

standards and standards development process; and

• EOPO 2: Better engagement in international standards fora by NSBs of ASEAN

Workshop 2 addressed two key thematic areas, identified as priorities during the first phase

of the Initiative in 2018:

• Day 1: Stakeholder Engagement – NSB audience only

• Day 2: International Standards for Emerging Technologies; Artificial Intelligence,

Blockchain and Smart Cites – NSB and government and industry stakeholders

Attendees

The Workshop was attended by representatives and experts from eight of the ASEAN Member States, as well as Australia and the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). There were over 22 participants on day one, and more than 40 participants on day two. Participants included representatives from National Standards Bodies, government and regulatory bodies, industry and associations involved in the digital trade space, and experts in the specific target technologies of artificial intelligence, blockchain and smart cities. A list of participants is included at the end of this report.

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DAY ONE – Program

Opening and Welcomes Pamela Tarif, Senior International Engagement Manager of Standards Australia, welcomed all Workshop participants to the second ASEAN-Australia Digital Trade Standards Workshop for 2019 and encouraged participants to actively engage in the discussions and activities for the next two days. Pamela introduced H.E. Chan Sopha, Director General of the Institute of Standards Cambodia, who provided an opening address to the Workshop attendees. His Excellency gave a summary of the previous activities that have occurred under the Initiative and commented on Cambodia’s commitment to standardisation in new technologies, such as through their participation on ISO/TC 307 Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies. Chan Sopha was pleased to welcome all the visitors to Cambodia and was looking forward to seeing the outcomes of the two-day Workshop.

Project Updates Ms Lucy Chalmers, International Engagement Manager at Standards Australia, gave an overview of the ASEAN-Australia Digital Trade Standards Initiative and current phase of activities being conducted for the Initiative in 2019. She also shared dates for the third and final Workshop, to be held at the Pullman Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia on 5-6 November 2019. Lucy revisited the three common priorities of Workshop 1 in Singapore in June, and encouraged participants to continue considering these action items during Workshop 2:

• Use creative methodologies when engaging stakeholders

• Map standards to key issues and priority areas in home countries

• Continue to streamline business processes

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Stakeholder Engagement – an ISO perspective As a lead in to the afternoon training on stakeholder engagement, participants first heard from ISO and IEC about their organisations and stakeholder engagement activities.

Ms Monja Korter addresses participants on Day 1

Technical Program Manager Ms Monja Korter, presented on behalf of the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) Central Secretariat. Monja introduced ISO as a member-driven organisation, a network of National Standards Bodies from across the world. She highlighted the important role of ISO Members to drive, lead and shape the work and the standards developed and produced by ISO. She emphasised that NSBs represent ISO in their country. As such, they are responsible for developing and managing national stakeholder relations that can ensure their country has a voice at the international level. Monja detailed some of the benefits which international standards bring to business, consumers, government and trade, including easing access into international markets for local producers, and helping strengthen national standards in member countries. ISO was fully aware of the increasing prevelance of technologies which are encouraging and facilitating rapid change around the world. They have responded by establishing 30 new ICT related technical committees in the past five years. The resulting international standards are enabling ISO members to adopt global best practice at national level, encouraging growth and innovation.

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Stakeholder Engagement – an IEC Perspective

Mr Anson Chiah shares the IEC perspective

Technical Officer Mr Anson Chiah from the IEC Asia-Pacific Regional Centre began by introducing the IEC vision for a safer, more efficient world. He described the IEC as a global knowledge platform where 20 000 experts from industry, commerce, government, laboratories, academia and consumer groups participate in standardization work, producing over 10000 international standards to date. The IEC looks to strengthen global trade across many areas. These include: electrical and electronic devices; smart urbanization; security of people and the environment and more. Anson explained the IEC membership types: full membership; associate membership; and affiliates/affiliates plus. Anson continued with information about IEC initiatives that support stakeholder engagement. These include: the IEC Young Professionals Program – focused on engaging the next generation of standards contributors; a Stakeholders round table which looks to increase dialogue between the IEC governance and stakeholders to share ideas and anticipate needs; a new regulators forum and series of webinars to drive up their participation in the work; information sessions, in-country trainings, and regional fora collaboration to promote IEC activities. The IEC Asia-Pacific Regional Centre in Singapore promotes IEC in the region and seeks to enhance the participation of member countries. The IEC Academy and Capacity Building Unit in Geneva also offers publicly available webinars across a range of topics, with recordings and slides accessible on the IEC website: www.iec.cg/academy In concluding this session, both speakers answered questions from participants around getting involved, engaging stakeholders, the role of National Mirror Committees, inputs to international level committee activities, and engaging experts to create a national mirror committee.

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Group Photo

Regional Sharing: Best practice stakeholder engagement practices In the regional sharing session, participating countries - Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand Viet Nam – paired up to share their successes, challenges and strategies for stakeholder engagement. The participants were each asked to share with their partner country how they engage stakeholders, what models have been successful, opportunities for further development, and stories of stakeholder engagement approaches. Each pair then shared with the full group the most innovative stakeholder engagement activity they had heard, ideas to take home and apply, and/or advice they had given to their partner country for improved stakeholder engagement in the future. Cambodia reported that Myanmar engaged stakeholders in small meetings related to the technical committee fields, inviting them to participate through emails and letters. They sometimes hold seminars with groups to gather insight and information. They have successfully had stakeholders join their activities through these initiatives. Myanmar are planning to establish a technical committee on digital trade in the future. Myanmar highlighted that Cambodia are pleased to participate on ISO/TC 307 Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies and that ISC Cambodia hold yearly workshops and training with internal staff and external stakeholders to engage and educate new people. Malaysia discovered that Lao PDR break down their stakeholders into three different categories: general, manufacturing and consumer. Malaysia recommend that Lao create new technical committees in emerging areas, and that they would share information with Lao on encouraging greater uptake and adoption of standards across different industries. Malaysia advised that stakeholder engagement needed to be continuous, with dedicated resources to ensure success. A focus on young people was a priority. Malaysia said a recent study found that only 50% of their catalogue of 5000 standards were being used. DOSM Lao said they

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would do more promotional work on their NSB and standards activities. They were interested in learning more from Malaysia and mirroring the work of other organisations such as DSM Malaysia. Singapore was interested to know that Vietnam offered many training programs for internal staff to focus on improving processes and for external stakeholders to raise awareness. Vietnam discovered that Singapore use their website well – listing standards online and highlighting the important standards and to attract and engage new stakeholders. ESG engage stakeholders on a one to one basis and adapt their approach depending on the type of stakeholders, from companies, to regulators and domestic enterprises. Thailand and Indonesia shared their experiences around new technology areas and noted that national standards bodies need to stay up to speed and informed to be ahead of the technology and standardization needs. In closing, ISO reminded participants that National Standards Bodies and their respective committee members need to understand their commitments and responsibilities as a participating member of international technical committees. NSBs also needed to make sure committee participation delivered a genuine mix of stakeholders and interests.

Training Session

On the afternoon of day one, Learning and Development trainer at Standards Australia Brendan Slowey, led participants through a Standards Australia designed training session on engaging stakeholders, complete with slides, workbook, interactive exercises, and links to further reading. The subject area was broken down into three key areas:

1. What is a stakeholder?

2. Identifying who to engage

3. Engagement Strategies

Under part 1, What is a stakeholder, participants studied the definition of a stakeholder as defined by ISO. They went on to analyse where stakeholders come from and why it is important to engage them in standards development. As a further step, the group broke into round table discussion to exchange on the challenges for national standards bodies when engaging stakeholders.

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Brendan Slowey explains the exercise to a group of participants

Part 2, Identifying who to engage, began by recognising the ISO stakeholder categories and digging down to examine what steps a national standards body might take to identify potential stakeholders. This led to a discussion around stakeholder mapping, pointing to stakeholders that were critical, important and impacted as a way of prioritising who needs to be involved. Participants then completed a practical exercise testing what they had learned.

Participants working on a training execise

In the third and final part of the training, the group reviewed key elements for meaningful stakeholder engagement including: having a clear purpose for the engagement; that stakeholder interests have been identified; and that stakeholders have sufficient information

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to make their decisions. Proactive and passive forms of engagement were studied and their differing impacts and advantages. A further exercise allowed participants to test out the information shared by engaging stakeholders in a fictitious country and national standards body. Participants brought to life through active role play the experience of trying to engage stakeholders, trying out differing techniques for opening the exchange, understanding their needs, speaking their language and inviting their participation. As a final step, participants wrote up an action plan to implement in their own national standards body on return home.

Roleplay on engaging stakeholders

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DAY TWO

Group Photo

Opening Address – Anthony Samson, Australian High Commission Second Secretary Mr Anthony Samson welcomed attendees on behalf of the Australian Government. He spoke of exciting times in ASEAN-Australia relations with 2019 marking the 45th year of Australia’s dialogue partner relationship. Maintaining a strong ASEAN-Australia relationship was vital, Anthony noted, as the Indo-Pacific region continues to experience profound strategic flux and face new challenges and uncertainty. He added that Australia’s priorities for the region will continue to complement and reinforce ASEAN’s and that Australia is invested in cultivating deeper people-to-people, economic, academic, institutional and cultural links between Australia and ASEAN. The ASEAN-Australia Digital Trade Standards Initiative was, Anthony said, an example of this new era of engagement. He recognised that standards are fundamental building blocks for a digital economy and critical for international compatibility of products and services. He reminded the meeting that the current phase builds on work from 2018 delivered by Standards Australia. 2019 and 2020 would aim to deliver a standards mapping exercise to identify priority standards that support the ASEAN economic agenda, as well as a DFAT and ASEAN approved work plan for the implementation phase.

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Opening Address – His Excellency Mr Chan Sopha, Institute of Standards

of Cambodia

Mr Chan Sopha welcomes participants on Day 2

Mr Chan Sopha gave a special welcome to Cambodia to the guests and was honoured to receive representatives from ISO, IEC and the Australian Government, as well as Standards Australia. He noted that standards are shifting to accommodate new and innovative technologies. It was therefore important that developing countries continue to share information and learn from each other’s best practice. He was especially aware of the importance of digital trade to the ASEAN region and encouraged greater use of standards to build trust in the market: standards and trust as a key pillar for building the ASEAN digital economy. He highlighted and encouraged take up of opportunities to join specific technical committees and working groups in ISO and IEC that support technologies. He noted that ACCSQ is working towards establishing a Digital Trade Working Group – a recommendation from Phase 1 - which will assist in progressing this ASEAN-Australia Digital Trade Standards Initiative.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Role for Standards: Ms Beth Patterson,

Director, ESPconnect

Beth tested the group on awareness about AI already in use in everyday life and experiences.

She noted that AI has no commonly used and accepted definition and that human capacity is

needed to interpret artificial intelligence. She explained that AI uses a rules-based system

driven by data, and its benefits are enormous capacity to read and interpret massive volumes

of data to identify trends and solutions.

In answer the question “AI: why now?” Beth explained that we have reached a stage of

unlimited processing power with cloud computing available to support large volumes of data.

She emphasised that it is this data and its management that needs supporting standards to

help drive further use and development of AI. She encouraged users to become compliant

with standards from the ground up – not in reverse as this can lead to problems later which

are more difficult to address. She identified specific standards which are useful for data

management and important for compliance to support and disseminate artificial intelligence.

The delegate from Myanmar noted there are so many standards, which can be problematic

for developing countries, adding there was a need to identify the greatest problem or

challenge, and use a standard which satisfies this core issue.

Blockchain for Emerging Economies: Potential Use Cases and the Role

of Standards: Ms Mastura Ishak –Malaysian Industry-Government Group

for High Technology (MIGHT)

Ms Mastura Ishak introduces her organisations work

Ms Mastura Ishak introduced blockchain as a type of distributed ledger technology favoured especially by financial markets in larger, more established economies. She noted however that the Philippines is moving very quickly towards using blockchain as a way of supporting financial inclusion as blockchain breaks down barriers for people who do not have bank accounts.

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Mastura said it was important that smaller ASEAN countries do not get left behind in new technologies. She also saw blockchain benefits for ASEAN nations other than for financial markets, for example, fruit exporting industries. It was important that governments support industry in the effective take up of blockchain and new technologies. And she reminded the audience of the importance of making sure technology does not become a barrier to trade for ASEAN countries and the need to work together through international standardization.

Blockchain in Cambodia – Use Cases and Participation in ISO/TC 307: Dr

Madhu Aman Sharma – K2A Management

Dr Mahdu detailed for the group the various challenges for blockchain technical committee participation in Cambodia. This included expertise, solidifying stakeholder interest, stakeholder support and ensuring they reach the desired outcomes. Participants were interested to explore standards versus regulations for blockchain and digital technologies and how blockchain or cryptocurrency might work for Cambodia, a country that uses two currencies.

Role of Standards to Smart Cities Implementation in Indonesia: A Case

Study - Mr S E Gensly, Ministry of Home Affairs, Indonesia

Mr Gensly talks Smart Cities in Indonesia

Mr S E Gensly, Head of Capacity Building Sub Directorate at the Ministry of Home Affairs in

Indonesia spoke about the role of standards to support smart cities implementation in his

country. He highlighted the many challenges faced in Indonesia in this task, for example

geography and population distribution, as well as the increasing use of internet and fast

evolving technology context for Indonesia. He further explained Indonesia’s governance

mechanisms and smart city ecosystem where software, hardware and ‘brainware’ come

together as key supporting tools. Pointing to high smart city priorities for the country, these

included education, housing, geospatial, health, social, and security. He talked about use of

standards in regulation in Indonesia around smart city implementation, including ISO 37120:

2018 Sustainable cities and communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life and plans to implement ISO 37122:2019 Sustainable cities and communities — Indicators for

smart cities.

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Blockchain in Australia - gaining standards momentum domestically and

internationally: Ms Rachel Frank, Former ISO/TC 307 International

Secretary

Rachel spoke of the growing significance of Blockchain and digital ledger technologies, evidenced for example by the 10 largest companies in the world exploring Blockchain (Forbes, June 2018) and seven of the world’s biggest banks joining with Intel, Microsoft and others to found the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance. She noted that the World Bank had launched the world’s first bond using distributed ledger technology on a platform developed by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Pointing to the benefits of standardisation for Blockchain, Rachel noted that standards support global regulatory coherence and provide clear guidelines for building blockchain. They also help establish interoperability and facilitate competition, which was essential for the technology to achieve its full potential. Rachel explained that ISO TC 307 was formed in 2016, and Standards Australia had developed a Roadmap for Blockchain Standards in 2017. In terms of participation, Australia is current secretariat to the committee, with Malaysia and Cambodia involved as Participating members and Indonesia and Philippines as Observers.

An Architecture and Standards Approach for Good Governance: Mr Viet

Hai, Vietnam Software and IT Service Association, VINASA Science and

Technology Institute (VSTI)

Mr Hai described key tasks in building smart cities: building city information infrastructure

and integrating smart city building process with urbanization. From a system perspective,

there are common objectives: better efficiency, robust and low-cost operation, safety,

support for citizen’s participation and engagement, and sustainable development. The

technologies involved included: cloud, big data, AI, IoT and more. All systems are digital,

complex, real-time, with characteristics such as interacting with the physical and biological

world, distributed and decentralized, software-intensive, with security and safety by design.

Mr Hai explained that Vietnam currently has 11 cities with Smart City Masterplans, covering

topics such as smart street lighting, intelligent transport systems, traffic management and

green buildings as well as travel and payment systems. Important international standards that

support this work include ISO 18091:2019 Quality management systems — Guidelines for the

application of ISO 9001 in local government, and ISO 37120:2018 on Sustainable cities and

communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life. The latter covers over 17 themes,

such as economy, telecommunication and finance. Building data infrastructure in sync with

smart apps was important. Mr Hai advised participants to avoid duplicate investment by

combining building smart city information infrastructure with e-government projects.

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Participants are actively engaged in the Q&A with presenters

To round off and reinforce the messages from these discussions, participants were invited to post comments and learnings about the three topics – Smart Cities, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence - on posters around the meeting room. Three groups then rotated around each topic to discuss more with the relevant speakers. This sparked a lively round of questions and answers that participants reported as useful in deepening their understanding of the technologies and opportunities for standardisation.

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Group Discussions

Participants agree on key findings from the workshop

Following two days of energetic discussions, activities and debate, a slight adjustment was made to the last session of the programme. Participants broke into small round table discussions to draw out findings from the two days, share these with the wider group, and as a final step vote on top priorities. The outcome was:

• A common ASEAN-Australia repository of relevant digital trade standards is needed

to help national standards bodies learn and share knowledge, experience and best

practice in the take up of digital standards

• NSBs need to improve stakeholder engagement processes

• International standards are crucial for emerging technologies

A final vote on top priorites

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In summary, workshop attendees participated actively in the activities and discussions across both days, asking questions, contributing their unique country experiences, providing feedback and insights to the training and expert presentations, and taking on board feedback to influence their future domestic and international work. The opportunity to network and share ideas and best practice with other participants was an important feature of the event and much appreciated by all attendees. Overall key findings were:

• Participants were motivated to improve the process of stakeholder engagement in

their NSBs and recognised that networking was essential to effective stakeholder

engagement

• Participants were convinced that using international standards was crucial for

emerging technologies, noting that standards can be used across multiple domains.

• Setting up new mirror committees with technical experts and having greater ASEAN

and Australia inputs into smart city and blockchain standards development was

needed.

Improvements in participating and adopting international standards for digital trade were also needed in NSBs, and a common ASEAN-Australia repository of relevant digital trade standards would help national standards bodies to learn and share knowledge, experience and best practice in the take up of digital standards.

Key points that emerged and takeaway items for future activities

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Country Participant Organisation

Cambodia Mr Pen Tonat Institute of Standards of Cambodia

Mr Kun Veasena Institute of Standards of Cambodia

Ms Bo Pichraksmey Department of Information

Mr Hout Thanin Department of Certification

H.E Chan Sopha Institute of Standards of Cambodia

Ms Chin Kesar Institute of Standards of Cambodia

Mr Ly Luch Institute of Standards of Cambodia

Indonesia Mr Rois Ricaro National Standardization Agency of Indonesia

Ms Kartika Anggar Kusuma National Standardization Agency of Indonesia

Mr Rizza Kamajaya Ministry of Home Affairs

Lao PDR Ms Latdavanh Sivongxay Department of Standardization and Metrology

Mr Odasack Chaleunvong Department of Standardization and Metrology

Mr Somphan Bounphaybit Information Technology Institute

Mr Orasoun MANY Standard and Metrology Centre

Malaysia Ms Siti Mariam Mohd Din Department of Standardization Malaysia

Ms Sabariah Abdul Talib Department of Standardization Malaysia

Mahadir Mohamed Department of Standards Malaysia

Myanmar Dr Khin Mar Zaw National Standards and Quality Department

Dr Thi Thi Soe National Standards and Quality Department

Mr Daw Yi Yi Lwin Department of Trade, Ministry of Commerce

Mr Ye Yint Win Department of Trade, Ministry of Commerce

Singapore Mr Chong Hui Da Enterprise Singapore

Ms Serena Neo Enterprise Singapore

Thailand Mr Prakit Sangpar Advisor of Information Technology Industry Club

Dr Urachada Ketprom NECTEC

Viet Nam Mr Nguyen Hai Anh Directorate for Standards, Metrology and Quality

Ms. Truong Hanh Hoa International Cooperation Department STAMEQ

Australia Ms Lucy Chalmers Standards Australia

Ms Pamela Tarif Standards Australia

Mr Brendan Slowey Standards Australia

ISO Ms Monja Korter ISO

IEC Mr Anson Chiah IEC

Speakers Mr Nguyen Viet Hai VINASA

Mr Gensly Ministry of Home Affairs Indonesia

Dr Madhu Aman Sharma K2A Management

Ms Mastura Ishak Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology

Ms Rachel Frank Standards Australia

EVENT VENUE Sofitel Phnom Penh Phokeethra, 26 Old August Site Sothearos Boulevard Sangkat Tonle Bassac12301 Phnom Penh, Cambodia