Queen Silvia of Sweden gave a speech on a remote connection during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Appearing on a screen from the Royal Palace in Stockholm on Tuesday, 1 March, Her Majesty spoke as the president of a session called “Children’s Rights and The Telecommunications Industry: Where do we stand, where are we going?”
The Queen made her appearance as the Founder of the Global Childhood Forum and gave a pretty short but passionate speech about the increasing role technology plays in the life of children and the risks this presence brings.
During her speech, Queen Silvia said, partly: “From the outset of the pandemic, there was a growing reliance on technology. Our educational systems now depend on it. And as the influence of technology on children’s lives continues to expand, your sector becomes even more important in creating a safe world for children – for all children.”
The Global Child Forum was founded by King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia in 2009. In its 12 years of existence, the entity has taken part in countless debates and supported many organisations that work with children’s rights and to prevent their exploitation.
The forum presided by Queen Silvia tied in perfectly with parts of the State of the Union address given by President Biden just a few hours later, during which he said partly: “We must hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit. It’s time to strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children, demand tech companies stop collecting personal data on our children.”
This highlights the key role that the discussion on the impact technological advances have on children’s lives has in the broad public discourse, something that Queen Silvia and Princess Madeleine have been actively working on for almost a decade, through the Global Child Forum as well as the World Childhood Foundation.
The Mobile World Congress was inaugurated on Sunday night with a dinner that saw the presence of King Felipe and many more Spanish authorities, with the focus aimed on discussing the future of the technological evolution, from artificial intelligence to broadband networks, from climate change to cybersecurity.
