GTWN @ Bali G20

November 23, 2022

The GTWN was excited and honoured to be represented at the G20 and B20 meetings in Bali, Indonesia from 13 to 17 November 2022. Our Founding President, Candace Johnson, spoke on the main stage in a panel session at the B20 and was also a featured speaker at the G20 affiliated event, THK Future Knowledge Summit.

Taking place during the week of the G20 Leaders meeting, the B20 Summit brings together the world leaders and more than a thousand CEOs and senior executives representing leading multinational corporations, and stimulate enriching discussion by policy makers, business leaders, and thought leaders of driving innovation, ensuring inclusive growth, and strengthening collaboration for global welfare and prosperity.

The B20 Indonesia 2022 was held on 13-14 November 2022 and embraced the theme of ‘Advancing Innovative, Inclusive and Collaborative Growth’ in support of the G20 theme of ‘Recover Together, Recover Stronger’. Women leaders from around the world also met in Bali at the W20, an official G20 engagement group which aims to ensure that gender considerations are mainstreamed into G20 discussions and translate into the G20 Leaders Declaration as policies and commitments that foster gender equality and women’s economic empowerment.

GTWN @Bali 2022 [l to r]: GTWN Founding President Candace Johnson with Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Maria Fernanda Garza and Tess Mateo, US delegate to the W20.

The plenary session on Monday 14 November took the theme of “Harnessing the power of innovation for future economic growth”.

The session was opened by keynote speakers Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, and Young Lium, Chairman of the Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn).

The panel discussion that followed was moderated by Jack Azagury, Group Chief Executive Strategy & Consulting at Accenture. It included: Alvin Sariaatmadja, President Director, Elang Mahkota Teknologi; Anthony Tan, CEO and Co-Founder, Grab; Candace Johnson, Co-Founder, SES and Loral-Teleport Europe; Christian Gebara, CEO, Telefonica Brazil; and Deep Kapuria, Chairman, Hi-Tech Group.

The panel of world class business leaders highlighted the role of innovation in a variety of sectors, be the mining, automative, e-commerce, or infrastructure. Key take-aways were: “It is better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all”; E-Commerce such as practised by GRAB can also be social commerce. During the session, the GRAB CEO highlighted all that they had done via the GRAB platform to give classes in digital transformation and education, social entrepreneurship, etc. The President and CEO of Elang Mahtok Teknologi also gave fascinating insights about raw metals being used in the energy transition.

GTWN Founding President Candace Johnson spoke[1] about the role of “inspiration” being as important as “innovation” in creating ventures. She also highlighted the GTWN’s work in creating OWNSAT (Oceania Women’s Network Satellite) in helping create Kacific, the Pacific region’s high throughput Broadband Internet Satellite System. When Candace showed that Kacific/OWNSAT was also covering Indonesia (see below) and was serving schools, villages, hospitals, and SME’s in Indonesia, she got a huge round of applause from the Indonesian officials attending the B20.


[1] Candace’s speech can be viewed here .  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXRFXU1er2M  starting at 1:31:48 and is about 6 minutes.


GTWN @ THK Future Knowledge Summit

Following the B20, Candace Johnson was invited to join a panel of experts on promoting sustainable development during the third Tri Hita Karana (THK) Future Knowledge Summit in Bali, Indonesia on 17-November 2022 with the theme “Future Knowledge and Blended Finance for Better Business and Better World”.

The THK Summit completed the week of meetings of the.  G20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali and was presided over by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, whose aspiration is to establish a THK Center of Future Knowledge in Bali, with the aim of realising a common sustainable future that is healthy, green and digitally inclusive.  Tri Hita Karana is a traditional Balinese philosophy, which promotes harmony between nature, people and self for a happy and sustainable future for all.

Candace joined the panel to give a Keynote Speech chaired by Sir Gordon Duff on ‘Future Knowledge; Visions for the Best Future’ which discussed how technology will change human lives, and how nations can collaborate on ethics and a legal framework. She shared her vision of how we can use space and space technologies together with blended global finance to meet the SDGs and international climate goals, for a sustainable future.

Candace presenting OWNSAT Board, most of whom are also GTWN International Board Members.

Candace also shared her vision of “Networks for the Universe” which she had first introduced at the Mobile 360 conference in Singapore.

Candace was asked to contribute an article to the official G20 publication on “Using Space and Space Technologies together with Global Blended Finance to meet the SDG’s and International Climate Goals”, which you can find on page 15 of the publication at the following link: https://issuu.com/g20magazine/docs/01_36_g20_indonesia_2022_issuu?fr=sMTcxNDU1MzYyMDU.