Deloitte and the World Economic Forum

Deloitte is a long-standing strategic partner of WEF and works collaboratively with its stakeholders to address issues of global importance and inspire action to improve the state of the world.

Drawing on Deloitte’s experience and capabilities from across our network, we help WEF address critical global challenges through our contributions to WEF communities, initiatives, and participation in events throughout the year. As a strategic partner, we work with a broad spectrum of global decision makers to develop frameworks, ideas, and approaches that address some of the world’s most pressing and complex challenges.

Reports launched at GTGS

Global Governance Toolkit for Digital Mental Health

Building trust in disruptive technology for mental health

Mental health is a huge burden on the global health care system, people’s social needs, human rights, and the economy. Yet, it is highly under-recognized. Between a quarter and half of the global population is affected by a mental disorder at some point in their lives.

Mental health challenges exacerbated in 2020 as the COVID-19 virus worked its way across the globe and catastrophes such as bushfires along with political unrest unleashed serious destruction. But social distancing and shutdowns also accelerated digital change unlocking a huge opportunity to transform global mental health and behavioral health systems. Despite the huge potential of disruptive technology, the new tools and services come with safety and efficacy concerns, as well as ethical questions related to the use of data.

WEF and Deloitte have explored the ethical concerns presented by disruptive technology in mental health and developed a toolkit that offers a framework of governance principles, standards, and processes that can be adopted by stakeholders as a code of ethics, regulatory standards, or simply as a kitemark of compliance, with a means for adapting these to different jurisdiction’s cultural, legal, medical, and clinical situations. 

› Read the Global Governance Toolkit for Digital Mental Health report

› Read the Agenda blog: Digital mental health is here – but how do we ensure its quality?

› Read the press release: New Resource for Protecting Personal Data for Mental Health Apps

› Read the Impact story: New toolkit protects users from thousands of unregulated mental health apps

Technology Futures Report 2021

Projecting the possible. Navigating what’s next.

The COVID-19 crisis is shining a klieg light on the immense challenge leaders face in planning for the future amid extreme uncertainty. In parallel, new technologies of the fourth industrial revolution, such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, and robotics, are changing the way we live, learn, and do business at a rate unprecedented in human history. These historic changes, considered within the increasingly urgent context of shifting political landscapes and environmental instability, suggest that now, more than ever, leaders need tools that can help them understand the future beyond the near term and then plan accordingly.

With this in mind, the WEF and Deloitte collaborated to produce a report that equips today’s readers with the insights and foresight critical to tomorrow’s leaders. The report highlights include a research-driven analysis of trends, resulting in a new framework for foresight; four pieces of speculative fiction to bring the possibilities and personalities of the future to life; and three calls to action to help leaders plot a path towards their most preferable tomorrow. 

› Read the Technology Futures: Projecting the Possible, Navigating What's Next report

› Read the press release: Futures Report Outlines Top Trends Impacting Global Economy, Society and Technology

› Read the Agenda blog: Futurism is a means to see beyond COVID-19. Here's how to time travel

Medicine from the Sky

Opportunities and Lessons from Drones in Africa

As we enter a new era of technologically advanced mobility that includes innovations once thought impossible, such as self-driving cars and new dimensions of aerial transport, one technology has been at the forefront: drones. In African countries, drones are saving lives through programs developed by the public and private sectors, that have positioned countries throughout Africa as leading examples of effective drone use for a variety of use cases, but especially medical delivery. Small pilot projects in paved the way for exploring the use of drones for medical delivery, but now the ecosystem is ready to move from pilots towards large deployments where the economics of drone delivery can make sense. The question is no longer whether the technology is ready, but how to find sustainable business models for drone enabled health care provision.

The pandemic stands to change the way people worldwide live and positions the world for a “Great Reset,” as vaccine development and distribution proceeds and economies begin to reopen.  Building upon successful pilots in rural African regions, programs around the world may even be able to leverage drones to pursue safe reopening through assisting with vaccine distribution, or grow economies in new ways through emerging use cases. This report explores how this work can be scaled to maximize the benefits; how lessons learned in Africa can pave the way for other large-scale programs globally; and how drones can prove beneficial on many fronts, including being leveraged to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

› Read the Medicine from the Sky: Opportunities and Lessons from Drones in Africa report

› Read the Agenda blog: 5 lessons from Africa on how drones could transform medical supply chains

Global Technology Governance Report 2021

Harnessing Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies in a COVID-19 World

The recovery from COVID-19 has started a wave of innovations in work, collaboration, distribution, and service delivery—and shifted many customer behaviors, habits, and expectations. Several of the emerging technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) have been at the center of these innovations and are likely to play an outsized role in what emerges post-pandemic. Working together, the public and private sectors have the opportunity to nurture 4IR technology development while mitigating the risks of unethical or malicious uses. How governments and other stakeholders approach the governance of 4IR technologies will play an important role in how we reset society, the economy, and the business environment. This report examines the opportunities and complications of governance for a set of 4IR technologies: AI, mobility, blockchain, drones, and IoT.

This report aims to help governments, innovators, and other stakeholders understand the current opportunity. The pandemic and its aftermath have accelerated the urgency of addressing current gaps with effective governance frameworks. The report examines some of the most important applications of 4IR technologies for thriving in a post pandemic world and governance challenges that may need to be addressed for these technologies to reach their full potential.

› Read the Global Technology Governance Report 2021: Harnessing Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies in a COVID-19 world report

› Read the press release: World Economic Forum Announces Global Technology Governance Summit and Flagship Report

› Read the Agenda blog: 5 ways to unlock the power of tech for the post-pandemic recovery