ZCZC
BSS-37
WORK-LAB-LAUNCHING
Future of Work Lab facilitating South-South Cooperation virtually launched
DHAKA, July 3, 2020 (BSS)- The Future of Work Lab facilitating South-South Cooperation was launched yesterday over the video conferencing platform, with the aim of empowering individuals, businesses and the government to navigate the future of work.
Kanni Wignaraja, United Nations (UN) Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) performed the inauguration of the lab.
The Access to Information (a2i) of the ICT Division and the Cabinet Division, supported by UNDP Bangladesh, and the UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub jointly hosted the launching ceremony.
The development of the Future of Work Lab was carried out to build a lab dedicated to progressing the Future of Work Agenda as well as facilitate South-South Cooperation to donate knowledge to partner countries of the Global South.
The lab will address the changing nature of work, workforce and workplace and carry out research to learn, test and develop solutions which will be monitored through a collective intelligence system to respond and reconstruct when needed.
It will focus on two areas: Skilling and Policy, to ensure existing workforce the youth are trained to have the skills required in the technology enabled digital era as well as facilitate data driven policy making to assist in the Future of Work Agenda.
The inauguration was followed by a presentation session on the Future of Work Lab where its values and missions, framework and operating models were explained.
The Future of Work Lab was presented by Christine Wellington, SDG Integration Lead of UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub and Asad-Uz-Zaman, Lead, Future of Work and South-South Cooperation, a2i.
Then, an interactive panel discussion, conducted by Anir Chowdhury, a2i’s Policy Advisor, took place.
High profile guest speakers such as Khandker Anwarul Islam, Cabinet Secretary of the Government of Bangladesh and Sudipto Mukerjee, Resident Representative of UNDP Bangladesh, were among the participants who took part in the discussion.
Other participants including Denis Nkala, Regional Coordinator (Asia Pacific) of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), Azusa Kubota, Resident Representative of UNDP Bhutan, Akiko Fujii, Resident Representative of UNDP Maldives and media personnel, were present on the occasion.
BSS/PR/SRH/KU/2040 HRS