Institutionnel
What Asia-Pacific tells us about AI literacy
September 5, 2026
From 5 to 7 October 2026, Jakarta will host the ASOCIO Digital & AI Summit, the main annual gathering of Asia-Pacific economies around digital transformation and artificial intelligence. ICIA will participate as International AI Literacy and Ecosystem Partner, contributing a 20-minute session on citizen AI literacy, delivered from Marseille, France.
September 2026 — ICIA at the ASOCIO Digital & AI Summit 2026, a view from Marseille
From 5 to 7 October 2026, Jakarta will host the ASOCIO Digital & AI Summit, the main annual gathering of Asia-Pacific economies around digital transformation and artificial intelligence. ICIA will participate as International AI Literacy and Ecosystem Partner, contributing a 20-minute session on citizen AI literacy, delivered from Marseille, France.
It will be our first international summit. It will not be our last.
Who is ASOCIO, and why it matters
ASOCIO, the Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization, is the oldest and most active professional ICT federation in the Asia-Pacific region. Founded in Tokyo in 1984, it now federates 24 member economies, representing more than 10,000 ICT companies and approximately 350 billion dollars in regional ICT revenues. Members include Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and many others. France participates as an invited member, alongside the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.
The 2026 edition inaugurates an AI Summit for the first time, running parallel to the historic Digital Summit. With ministerial delegations from 25 economies, support from Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs and the National Cyber and Crypto Agency, and the theme "AI Beyond Hype: Transforming Industries, Shaping Futures," this is not a niche technology conference. It is a serious gathering of policymakers, technology leaders and civil society representatives deciding, together, what responsible AI adoption should look like across one of the world's most dynamic regions.
Being part of it, matters.
What we will say
ICIA's session will be built around three arguments.
The first is that AI literacy is not a nice-to-have. It is the foundation on which every AI ambition rests. Without genuine understanding, AI governance is hollow, AI adoption is fragile, and AI investment is at risk. Citizens who cannot understand the systems that make decisions about them cannot hold those systems accountable.
The second is that standard training models fail the people who need them most. Most AI training is designed for the already-convinced, delivered in formats that assume time, mobility and infrastructure that most working adults worldwide do not have. The nurse who uses an AI diagnostic tool every day, the small business owner told he must adopt AI or fall behind, the civil servant who interacts with an algorithm and has never been told how it works: these are the people for whom AI literacy matters most, and they are the people whom existing training models consistently fail to reach.
The third is that a different model is possible. The ICIA, MentivisOS Ecosystem generates a fully personalized AI literacy pathway from a single objective, stated in plain language, starting from the learner's actual level, adapting in real time to their progress. No catalogue, no prerequisites, no cost. Available in 6 European languages. Free for anyone, anywhere.
What we expect to learn
We are going into Jakarta with one conviction and many questions.
The conviction: that the challenge of AI literacy looks different in every country, but the underlying pattern is the same everywhere. Adoption outpaces understanding. Deployment outpaces governance. Technology moves faster than the people it is supposed to serve.
The questions are the interesting part. How are governments across Asia-Pacific thinking about the citizen dimension of AI adoption, not just the industrial and economic dimension? What does responsible AI look like when you are building it from scratch, rather than retrofitting it onto existing institutions? What can a young French non-profit learn from the experience of economies that are moving faster, at greater scale, with different constraints?
We expect honest conversations. We expect disagreement on some things and surprising alignment on others. We expect to come back with a clearer sense of where ICIA fits in a global conversation that is just beginning.
Above all, we expect to be reminded that this work matters. That the question of who gets to understand AI, and who gets left behind, is not a technical question. It is a political, social and deeply human one.
Jakarta, we are ready.
What it already confirms
The gap between AI adoption and AI understanding is not a French problem. It is not a European problem. It is a global pattern, visible well before the Summit opens.
The pace of adoption consistently outstrips the pace of training. Organizations deploy AI systems before they train the people who use them. Governments adopt AI-powered tools before they build the governance frameworks to oversee them. Citizens interact with AI-mediated decisions every day without understanding what those decisions are based on, or how to challenge them.
This is not a technology failure. It is a literacy failure. And literacy failures do not resolve themselves through time. They require deliberate, structured, accessible intervention.
What it implies for policy
The EU AI Act's Article 4 literacy obligation, which entered into force in February 2025 and became fully enforceable in August 2026, may be the first of its kind. It will not be the last.
The idea that AI literacy can move from aspiration to legal obligation is no longer a European peculiarity. It is becoming a global conversation, and the ASOCIO Summit is one of the places where that conversation will happen in October.
For ICIA, this represents both a validation and a responsibility. We built our model before the obligation existed. We are now positioned to contribute to a global discussion on what meaningful AI literacy looks like in practice, not just in policy papers.
What we offer
Any citizen, in any of the 25 ASOCIO member economies, can access ICIA Open, powered by the ICIA, MentivisOS Ecosystem, at iciafrance.com, today, for free.
No registration fee. No prerequisites. No credit card. A personalized learning pathway, generated from a single stated objective, in 6 European languages, with more languages in development.
If you are a ministry, a training body, a civil society organisation or an educational institution in Asia-Pacific and you want to understand how this model works and whether it can be adapted to your context, we are available.
Closing
The conversation between Europe and Asia-Pacific on responsible AI is starting. It will start in Jakarta in October 2026, around a theme that both regions share: how to move beyond the hype and build something that actually works, for everyone, not just for those who are already inside the room.
ICIA will be in that conversation from Marseille. We are available to continue it from wherever the next conversation happens.
