Setting the DQ Global Standards is about drawing the line. So that not a single individual falls below the line.

The DQ Institute is an international think-tank that is dedicated to setting global standards for digital intelligence that ensures safety, empowerment, and well-being of individuals, organizations, and nations in the digital age. It is registered as a 501(c)(3) Not-For-Profit Organization in the United States (Employer ID #82-0628471) and a public company limited by guarantee in Singapore (UEN 202142503D). Its affiliated organizations are DQ Lab Pte Ltd, a social enterprise based in Singapore that focuses on research, development, and dissemination of the DQ Global Standards (IEEE 3527.1TM) and the Coalition for Digital Intelligence.

Vision and Mission

Digital Intelligence for All (#DQforALL)

Empower every individual, organization, and nation with digital intelligence to achieve their wellbeing, safety, and prosperity in the digital age.

You can read the #DQforALL Charter here.

We Define the Global Standards

The Digital Intelligence (DQ) framework is the global standards and common framework for digital literacy, skills, and readiness (IEEE 3527.1TM) which was approved by the IEEE Standards Board on 24 September 2020. It was endorsed by the IEEE Standards Association, OECD, and World Economic Forum in 2018, and has been widely used by nations, organizations, and companies championing digital intelligence. The DQ Global Standards continue to evolve and grow as technology advances.

In association With

We Measure the Global Standards

The DQ Index measures collective and comprehensive progress in the human side of digital transformation, and helps nations and organizations identify the digital skills gap. It serves as a common measure that encompasses different frameworks and programs to visualize collective impact.
Through the DQ index, we are able to measure the level and progress of digital intelligence of nations in a manner that is standardized, comparative, and searchable.

We Connect via the Global Standards

Our goal is to close the digital skills gap by 2030. Through our network of partners who are driven by our collective mission of #DQforALL, we educate, enable, and monitor progress of digital intelligence (DQ) of 1 billion people using the DQ Index.

People

Yuhyun Park, PhD

Founder

Mei Lin Fung

Global Partnership Architect & Board Member

Douglas A. Gentile, PhD

Research Architect & Board Member

Nam-Joon Cho, PhD

Strategy Architect & Board Member

Charles Harvey

Board Secretary

Davis Vu

Chief Creative Officer

Matthew Kasdin

Law and Strategy

Josh Jackman

R&D Strategy

Yun Jang

Data Science

Sang Wook

Statistics

Yuhyun Park, PhD

Founder

Dr. Yuhyun Park is a world-leading expert in digital skills and child online safety. She created the Digital Intelligence (DQ) concept and framework, which is the world’s first global standards and a common framework for digital literacy, skills, and readiness (IEEE 3527.1) which was endorsed by the IEEE Standards Association, OECD, and World Economic Forum in 2018.

In addition, she has been serving in various international leadership positions related to digital economy, skills, and safety, including as the leader of the EQUALS ITU Digital Skills Coalition, the chair of TikTok Safety Advisory Council AP, and International Lead for Digital Economy in the G20 Civil Society (2020). She also serves as an adjunct professor at Yonsei University and a board member at Future Consensus institute in South Korea.

She has received numerous international awards, including recognition as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Ashoka Fellow, Eisenhower Fellow, and multiple UNESCO prizes. Dr Park completed her PhD degree and post-doctoral studies in Biostatistics at Harvard University.

Mei Lin Fung

Global Partnership Architect & Board Member

Mei Lin Fung is truly a pioneer and leader of various advocacies that leverage its impact on people and communities. She is the current Chair and Co-founder of the People Centered Internet (PCI) Foundation alongside Vint Cerf, which roots its purpose in ensuring that the Internet is a positive force for good and making such vast resources and opportunities accessible to all people. She likewise chairs and co-founded the Impact Network in 2017 and closely works with the IEEE Industry Connections Social Impact Measurement to incorporate the voice of the people and community in achieving true sustainable impact. Her work as a Founding Chair of the California Health Medical Reserve Corps proves to empower individuals and communities to dream and take ownership of their health, and lastly, her leadership for four years in the US Department of Defense brought together community leaders and the government, which represent over 50% of all healthcare spending in the US, paved the way for a brighter and more hopeful Future of Health.

Douglas A. Gentile, PhD

Research Architect & Board Member

Dr. Douglas Gentile is an award-winning research scientist, educator, author, and professor of psychology at Iowa State University. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on the effects of digital media on children and adolescents and his research primarily focuses on how children’s media use influences health and wellness. He is the editor of the book Media Violence and Children (2 editions; Praeger Press), and co-author of the book Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy (2007, Oxford University Press) and the book Game On! Sensible Answers about Video Games and Media Violence. He has authored over 135 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, including studies on the positive and negative effects of mass media on children in several countries, video game “addiction,” and mindfulness practices for reducing anxiety and increasing happiness. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and he was named one of the Top 300 Professors in the United States by the Princeton Review.

Nam-Joon Cho, PhD

Strategy Architect & Board Member

Nam-Joon Cho is the MRS-Chair Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His research activities focus on biointerfacial science approaches to solve important biomedical problems and to translate these capabilities into practical applications for global health. He has published over 230 scientific papers in top journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Nature Protocols, Science Translational Medicine, and Science Advances. Dr. Cho’s scientific work has been highlighted by international media organizations such as Reuters, CNBC, and Businessweek, and has led to licensed technologies in the fields of antiviral medicine and biotechnology. In addition, he serves on the Future University Committee of the Hanssem DBEW Research Foundation and has collaborated with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to develop affordable science laboratory kits for K12 students in developing nations. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Charles Harvey

Board Secretary

A serial entrepreneur, Charles Harvey has spent his career nurturing nascent emerging technologies to grow from a spark into billion-dollar markets. He is an expert in the policy and business of quantum communications and business development. He led the creation of the world’s first industry quantum standards for QKD and QRNG at the Quantum Alliance Initiative. Mr. Harvey also led the ITU-T and its member states including the United States, China, South Korea, Japan, Germany, UK, and Russia to unanimously agree to its first approved global quantum communications standards.

He has worked with the executive leadership of over a dozen global tech firms including IBM, Ericsson, Nokia, and Cisco to develop and execute their respective strategic global market development plans, as well as a quantum policy consultant to SK Telecom’s Quantum Tech Lab and Korea’s Quantum Union.

He currently splits his time on the advisory boards of the Hudson Institute’s Quantum Alliance Initiative, American Defense International, and as an investor to several quantum, AI, and blockchain startup companies based in the US, Europe and Asia.

He is a graduate of The Citadel, where he serves on its Washington, D.C. alumni board.

Davis Vu

Chief Creative Officer

Davis Vu is an alumni of the California Institute of the Arts focused on creating and developing IP and is currently Creative Show Developer for projects in development.

He co-created DQ World and its programs and IP. His production portfolio includes Warner Bros. “Yogi Bear”, Imagi Animation’s “Gatchaman”, Nickelodeon/Wayforward’s “Spongebob Squigglypants”, Tiny Island’s “Dream Defenders”, and created the Little Lives’ “Twinkle Trails” educational series. He has also worked with large advertising clients Unilever, Alliance to End Plastic Waste, National Environment Agency, MiniToons, and many more.

He currently also lectures at California State University, Long Beach and previously also taught at Nanyang Technological University, Digipen Institute of Technology, Lasalle College of the Arts, CG Protege School of Animation, and Ngee Ann Polytechnic teaching Animation, Storyboarding, Cinematography, Foundation Drawing, Character Design, and Professional Practices in Art for nearly a decade.

Matthew Kasdin

Law and Strategy

A lawyer by training with over 20 years of experience, Matt is passionate about human rights, labor rights, environmental rights, anti-corruption, sustainable supply chain management, public company reporting on ESG and other ESG topics. He was previously practicing at Latham & Watkins, one of the world’s leading international law firms and was also the acting Head of Legal at the United Nations Global Compact. His expertise in advancing impact and responsible investing includes working on projects for the World Bank and OECD, and representing leading investment banks and private equity firms in billion-dollar cross border transactions.

Matt co-authored an award-winning law review article on corruption published in the Texas Journal of International Law and edited United Nations publications on embedding human rights in business practices. He was awarded the US State Department Fulbright Scholar advising on legal reform, was appointed as the Executive Editor of the Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business, and served as a member of the UNDP Climate Change Stakeholder Advisory Committee for Asia. Currently, he is the Director, Senior Counsel at Maxeon Solar Technologies – a spin-off from SunPower Corporation and a NASDAQ-listed company in Singapore – overseeing key legal, operations, compliance and ESG functions.

Josh Jackman

R&D Strategy

Joshua A. Jackman is an Assistant Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) where he leads the Translational Nanobioscience group, which is focused on applying engineering strategies to solve problems in medicine, biotechnology, and agriculture. In addition to academic research, one of his major passions is youth science and technology education and he has published several articles on training future nanotechnology leaders along with serving on a US National Science Foundation panel. Professor Jackman has participated in DQ Institute activities for over a decade.

Yun Jang

Data Science

Yun Jang received the bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University, South Korea in 2000, and a masteral and doctoral degree in Electrical and Computer engineering from Purdue University in 2002 and 2007, respectively. He is an Associate Professor of Computer Engineering at Sejong University, Seoul, South Korea. He was a postdoctoral researcher at CSCS and ETH Zürich, Switzerland from 2007 to 2011. His research interests and expertise cover interactive visualization techniques, visual analytics, data science, virtual reality, and human factors.

Sang Wook

Statistics

Sangwook Kang is an associate professor in Applied Statistics / Statistics and Data Science at Yonsei University in Korea. He has a background in biostatistics, with specific training and expertise in multivariate survival data analysis with complex study designs, and he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007 with a doctoral degree in Biostatistics. For 6 years, he worked at the University of Georgia and University of Connecticut as a faculty member in statistics and biostatistics and then joined Yonsei University in 2013. Applying his knowledge and experience in statistics is his contribution to building a better world for his son.

History

Recognizing how technological issues such as cyber-bullying, privacy invasion, and gaming addictions affect children, Dr. Yuhyun Park, started a not-for-profit initiative called infollutionZERO (information pollution ZERO) in South Korea in 2009. It began as an educational initiative that empowered children with digital citizenship skills to minimize risks and maximize potential in the digital world.
Dr. Park moved to Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore and the infollutionZERO initiative evolved into a research-based digital citizenship education outreach program for Singaporean primary schools, in collaboration with Associate Professor Angeline Khoo and other researchers at the National Institute of Education (NIE).

Seeing the need for a comprehensive approach to digital education, in 2015, Dr. Park’s team pioneered the concept and framework of Digital Intelligence (DQ) – a comprehensive set of digital competencies that individuals need to thrive in the digital economy beyond IQ and EQ.

The team developed DQWorld.net, a research-based online digital citizenship education/assessment platform for 8-12 year-old children with the support from Singtel and the Inter- Medium-level Skillinistry Cyber Wellness Steering Committee (ICSC). The DQ World children education programs have been used by more than 1 million children across 85 countries, and includes one of the world’s largest database and analytic systems for assessing children’s online behaviors and digital citizenship skill capabilities.
In 2017, the DQ initiative was featured at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The team’s efforts to tackle the cyber-risk pandemic facing children found strong support from global leaders. In turn, a growing list of international engagements motivated the creation of the DQ Institute (DQI) – an international think-tank that was born in association with the World Economic Forum, and later registered as a 501(c)(3) charity organization in the US. Right away, the DQI started #DQEveryChild – a global education movement with the vision of empowering children in >100 countries with DQ digital citizenship using the DQWorld.net platform by 2020. The DQ Coalition was formed and currently includes Singtel, Turkcell, and Twitter among over 100 partners from around the world.
We also initiated the Coalition for Digital Intelligence together with the OECD, IEEE, People Centred Internet, and many others to set DQ as a global standard for digital literacy and skills. On this journey to educate children through #DQEveryChild, it has become apparent that there is an ongoing need for digital skill assessment tools, certification programs, and risk monitoring for adults, especially company employees. With the fast-changing digital economy and AI and other technological advances, it is also critical to train workers with industry-specific digital skills for company growth and economic competitiveness. In collaboration with Singapore SkillsFuture, we developed a set of assessment tools and an analytic system to measure the digital citizenship of the general public and workforce.

2020 was a big year for DQI and we made tremendous progress in three key areas:

  • building a global DQ standards framework that all nations and sectors can adopt (DQ Global Standards),
  • implementing a global children’s education program that any child can learn from (#DQEveryChild), and
  • establishing a global measure for child online safety that all nations can take heed of (Child Online Safety Index).

In February 2020, DQ finalized the Phase 1 of #DQEveryChild in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and published the Child Online Safety Index (COSI), the world’s first real-time measure to help nations better understand their children’s online safety status. Finally on 24th September 2020, Digital Intelligence (DQ) was officially approved by the IEEE Standards Association as the world’s first global standard related to digital literacy, digital skills, and digital readiness (IEEE 3527.1™ Standard)7.

Based on these experiences, the DQ Seal – Global Digital Skills Coordination Project will coordinate, empower, and measure digital skills initiatives worldwide with the vision of “Digital Empowerment For All” to bridge the global digital skills gap through DQ Global Standards.

Affiliated Organizations

DQ Lab Pte Ltd

DQ Lab Pte Ltd is a global social enterprise based in Singapore – R&D and commercialization arm of the DQ Institute. It is dedicated to provide global benchmarking tools of the DQ global standards through real-time data assessment and visualization that empower individuals, organizations, and nations to be digitally safe and competent. Its management is empowered to make decisions with a primary focus on furthering our mission while at the same time maximizing profits within the context of promoting the mission.

Coalition for Digital Intelligence

The Coalition for Digital Intelligence (CDI) is a cross-sector cooperative network of organizations from around the world that aims to improve global digital intelligence by coordinating efforts across educational and technology communities through multi-stakeholder collaborations. It was formed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the IEEE Standards Association, and the DQ Institute in association with World Economic Forum and launched on September 26, 2018.

The Coalition aims to set a global framework for digital intelligence, which includes a common set of definitions, language, and understanding of comprehensive digital literacy, skills, and readiness that can be adopted by all stakeholders worldwide, including national governments, educators, technology companies, and service providers.

A common framework endorsed by key institutions and standard-setting bodies would be highly beneficial for all stakeholders, in both educational and technology communities, by enabling stakeholders to work synergistically rather than discretely to address similar sets of problems and by allowing the coordination of efforts both within and across sectors.

Above: The Coalition for Digital Intelligence brings together cross-sector organizations to enhance Digital Literacy, Skills, and Readiness

In association With

Contact Us

Let’s make things happen!

Let us know how we can help you to promote the DQ in your community or nation.

GET DQ IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE

Are you looking to translate DQ into your own language? Let us know in the contact form.

DQ INSTITUTE