TRPC Managing Director Lim May-Ann's presentation at the Global Digital Development Forum 2020, for a panel on Planning the Next Lap of ASEAN’s Digital Masterplan 2025.

2. Planning the Next Lap of ASEAN’s
Digital Masterplan 2025
An inclusive online session to discuss what could be included in the next lap of the ASEAN Digital Masterplan
6 May 2020, 3-4pm SG time (GMT+8)
Session moderator: Lim May-Ann
Panelists:
• Ms Hannah Lim, Head of Rule of Law & Emerging Markets,
LexisNexis
• Ms Sunny Park, Asst. General Counsel and APAC Regional Director,
Corporate, External and Legal Affairs, Microsoft
https://digitaldevforum.com/agenda/

3. Proposed Themes
Option 1: ASEAN : A Digitally Connected Community
Option 2: ASEAN: Towards a Responsible Digital Community
Option 3: ASEAN: Towards a Holistic Digital Ecosystem
About the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025
History:
● ASEAN ICT Masterplan 2020
https://www.asean.org/storage/images/2015/November/ICT/15b%20--
%20AIM%202020_Publication_Final.pdf
● ASEAN ICT Masterplan 2015 https://cil.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ASEAN-ICT-
Masterplan-AIM-2015-1.pdf
● e-ASEAN Framework Agreement 2000 https://asean.org/?static_post=e-asean-framework-
agreement

4. Vision
ASEAN as a leading digital community and economic bloc,
powered by secure and transformative digital services,
technologies and ecosystem.
About the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025

5. Intended Outcomes
About the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025
1. Digital transformation of traditional sectors - Maximise opportunities for
value creation from digital transformation for both society and industry.
(E.g. : Digital economy);
2. Fair and competitive digital market - A fair and healthy digital ecosystem
where intellectual property rights are respected and to establish fair
regulations. (E.g. : Over-the-Top Service players);
3. Secure and trusted digital environment - ASEAN as a trusted digital
ecosystem where transactions and information exchanges are safe, secure,
and trustworthy. (E.g. : Cybersecurity);
4. Inclusive, sustainable and accessible digital ecosystem - Reduce
disparity in accessibility and affordability to digital technology ensuring
sustainability;
5. Digital savvy citizens - Create digitally literate citizen empowered to use
digital technologies and services for personal and professional betterment;
6. ASEAN as a competitive digital economic bloc - To ensure all AMS take
coordinated actions to build a regionally integrated digital economy to
accelerate intra- regional trade and growth, and enable local businesses to
grow domestically, regionally and globally.

6. Objectives
About the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025
1. To establish an inclusive and comprehensive regional strategy which will
propel ASEAN to be a front-runner in the Digital Economy;
2. To encourage interoperability and seamless digital connectivity in ASEAN;
3. To enhance resilient, secure and trusted digital environment, with the aim
to support economic progression and technological advancement;
4. To strengthen ASEAN’s position as a region conducive for investment and
trade through digital technologies and innovation;
5. To support the work of the other ASEAN sectoral bodies, emphasising the
cross-sectoral role of digital technologies in economic and social
development, and security measures;
6. To build bridges with relevant stakeholders including dialogue partners,
private sector organisations, associations and commercial entities to
advance the digital transformation and digital economy agenda in ASEAN.

7. Panellists
What would you like to
see in the ASEAN Digital
Masterplan?
About the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025
A. Digital Connectivity and Infrastructure > Sulyna Abdullah, Netflix
B. Digital Transformation > Sunny Park, Microsoft
C. Resilience, Trust and Security > Simon Hirrle, Interpol
D. Digital Policy, Regulation and Standards > May-Ann, TRPC
E. Cooperation and Collaboration > Hannah Lim, LexisNexis

8. Strategic ThrustsAbout the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025
A. Digital Connectivity
and Infrastructure
1.Enhancing accessibility, quality and affordability of
infrastructure
2.Next-generation infrastructure
3.Universal design
4.Equitable access
B. Digital
Transformation
1.Smart digital environment
2.Emerging technologies (e.g.: AI, IoT, 5G, cloud
computing, big data, etc.)
3.Digital innovation
4.Digital government and society
5.Digital literacy
6.Reskill, upskill and new skills
7.Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)
C. Resilience, Trust
and Security
1.Network resilience and Cyber Security standards
and best practices;
2.Network resilience and Cyber Security capacity
building and awareness raising;
3.Addressing risks and threats of emerging
technologies;
4.Critical information infrastructure protection (CIIP);
5.CERT Cooperation;
6.Personal Data Protection and privacy;
7.Emerging Threats i.e. fake news, misinformation,
etc.
D. Digital Policy, Regulation and
Standards
1.Digital innovation sandbox;
2.Cross-border data flow;
3.Policies, regulation and standards in the digital economy
(E.g.: Digital taxation, ethics, standardisation, big data,
allocation and use of scarce resources, etc.);
4.Green Digital Initiative;
5.Disaster management;
6.Measurement tools
E. Cooperation and Collaboration
1.Cross-sectoral collaboration;
2.Technology developers;
3.Dialogue Partners;
4.International organisations;
5.Civil society and public awareness;
6.Other relevant stakeholders.

9. Digital Transformation
OBSERVATIONS
1. Covid19 is a great time to establish a strong argument for the digital
transformation narrative in ASEAN
1. Extreme acceleration of digital transformation - especially the use of
digital tools - has time-compressed two years of slow adoption of use of
technology, into two months!
1. How can we establish digital transformation policies in ASEAN to - not
just DEAL with covid19, but also to RECOVER from the pandemic?
Drastic plans are needed
○ Can we even go “back to normal”/go backwards?
○ Time to discuss business continuity plans, and resilience
1. Digital divide has truly been exposed during covid19
○ infrastructure build-out
○ organisational culture needs to leverage technology to be
inclusive
Session Notes

10. Digital Transformation
Session Notes
SUGGESTIONS
1. Reskilling, upskilling, new-skilling - must be a public-private partnership.
People are going to be losing jobs - how are people going to re-enter the
workspace now, beyond the digital divide, and improve the digital
literacy.
1. Should be a public-private partnership to roll-out reskilling programmes
1. Especially for SMEs, to adopt digital technologies to ensure that they are
embracing digital technologies to recover quickly from the economic
fallout from covid19 - beyond giving subsidies / “teach them to fish”
mentality
1. Govt should also avoid over-regulating; need to have the space to
innovate -- have a framework, but have the private sector have the space
to be innovate and thrive
1. Public sector themselves have to embrace digital transformation
themselves - beyond the social media-type of
“digitization”/”digitalization” - govt must understand the difference

11. Digital Transformation
Session Notes
SUGGESTIONS (continued)
6. Suggestion for an ASEAN digital policy workshop
7. For the public sector, working with the private sector, to discuss issues such
as cross-border data flows, data localisation (server in your backyard/under
your table concept) - to explain how technology and cloud computing works,
and what the best technologies are
8. Real constraints - some countries are simply NOT at the point where they
can engage in ALL digital transformation at this point - step-up plan can be
put in place, with cloud computing; is it a best use of resources to devote all
budget to building an in-country data centre
9. What are the concerns that enterprises and govts have for DCs? Who is
qualified to have access to the data? How can the physical security of data
centres be protected? Resourcing for private companies is higher - MSFT
spends USD1b in cybersec a year; compare with local govt budget to protect
their own DCs

12. Cooperation and Collaboration
OBSERVATIONS
1. ASEAN has extreme community diversity
○ different opinions on specific concepts e.g. rule of law,
access to justice
○ versus “the ASEAN way”
1. Supporting civil society should come via ASEAN member states
(AMS)
○ increasing engagement on the ground/ need to look to the
ground
○ “political change management”
○ trust-building between civil society and member states
Session Notes

13. Cooperation and Collaboration
SUGGESTIONS
1. ASEAN to consider cooperation and collaboration as an
“enabling” Strategic Thrust - it helps allow other STs move ahead
1. Socializing govt with the technology at hand is impt, in order to
do capacity-building at the local level. Here the private sector
has a role to play, to find platforms for trust-building and
information-sharing, strong engagement needed
a. Private sector to show govts what the risks and benefits are
b. if govts aren’t equipped to handle tech, there will be a big
gap in egov services - private sector can assist with this
1. Private sector also has to assist with consensus-building -
training and skills-building, but we also need to establish other
consensus-building platforms
Session Notes

14. For Reference: Sample Initiatives and Action Points
AIM 2015 (left) | AIM 2020 (right)

15. Let’s work on this together