 Welcome to WRC 19, the World Radio Communication Conference being held in Shamashshake in Egypt. I'm joined here on the last day by Ahmed Raghi, who is the Executive Director for International Relations for the NTRA, the National Telecommunications Regulator Agency of Egypt. Ahmed, welcome to the studio. Thank you a lot, Max. I'm very happy to be with you today. Now, let's talk a little bit about this conference. It's been a massive conference. It's been going on here for about five weeks in total if you count the Radio Communication Assembly prior to this. And you guys have been really very much at the heart of the whole organization of it. Tell us a little bit about the challenges and the whole set up really that has been your life, I presume, for the last five weeks, but much more prior to that as well. Thank you a lot, Max. First of all, thank you a lot for having me today. And as you mentioned really, it's a long journey. Yes, we're here for almost five weeks, but the whole preparation or arrangements for this huge event, I think the biggest event for the ITU and one of the biggest event in the telecom sector, I think in the last two years. Almost, starting from the date that the Government of Egypt submitted its request to receive the WRC event here in Sharma Sheikh for the first time for maybe the last 20 years. Normally, this event used to be in the ITU headquarters in Geneva, but for a special occasion this time, you will have it here in Sharma Sheikh. Really, this is not only a challenge for the host country. It's always a challenge for the ITU, the staff itself, since it's the first time to have it outside Geneva for a long, long time. So both of us work very close together for the last two years to discuss every detail about transfer all the services, all the requirements of this event to this convention centre. Actually Max, the Government of Egypt decided to extend or to give this marvellous city, Sharma Sheikh, a new dimension of touristic level. Normally, people used to come here to enjoy their time in the beach and the desert and the nightlife, but we decided to go for the domain of conferences hosting. The Government of Egypt decided to have a massive renovation for this convention centre, and this convention centre is one of the biggest ones in the Middle East area and maybe in the world, and to give a huge renovation process in all aspects to accommodate huge conferences with very sophisticated requirements. This process started in 2016 and we went through all this massive renovation to the end, I think, by 2018, to accommodate the conference like the WRC or the biggest UN conferences in the city of Sharma Sheikh. Now, you're regulators, so in principle, you're not an events company, but however, you seem to have really taken this on board and it's, I mean, 3,000 people or more here. This must have been a huge undertaking for you. Yes, you're completely correct Max. As I mentioned you, it was a country under government decision. Many stakeholders involved in this event, a lot of companies, a lot of vendors, working with the NGRA, yes, we are telecom operators. We are a small team responsible about event hosting and certain specialties, but really we have a huge, very multi-diversity organisation and committee. From all aspects, governmental and also special experts in various fields, audio and video, security, catering and medical, all aspects we may need in hosting such mega-events in Sharma Sheikh. And we even have the President here. Is that usual? Does he usually give his blessing and his attendance to events like this? His Excellency, the President of Egypt, blessing a lot the hosting of this big event here in Sharma Sheikh. We had the honour to receiving him in the opening ceremony, and he really appreciated a lot all preparations from the host country and also for sure from the ITU side to hosting this mega-event. So as I told you, it's a government focus to bring this sort of huge event to here in Egypt, here in Sharma Sheikh, and this vision to transfer the city to hub to the big conferences. What about the conference itself? How much do you think the decisions that have been made here, the resolutions are going to affect Egypt and the region in general? For sure. The WRC is, I consider it as a campus for the technological development. This conference brings the bread and butter for the telecom makers. They can depend completely about what is going on here in this conference. This conference provides them with the main infrastructure, main backbone for their services, the frequency, the spectrum. Today we are the last day, and I hope everyone enjoyed the organisational side, but I believe also from the content side the conference was very successful. We, Member States and all membership of the ITU succeeded to reach consensus for a lot of resolutions for, I'm sure, the redelegations that will give the development of the market and 5G, IoT, safety communications, mood sensing, a lot of issues that will for sure use for the development of all human beings in the world. Now you are now a DAB candidate, you're an expert I would say, probably having gone through this entire process, for anybody thinking about hosting a very large event like this, what would you say are the major challenges? What would you say are the things that you should really look out for and think about before embarking on this? First of all, teamwork. For sure. We need to be a very close teamwork, not only from host country side and ITU side, and all partners should work in a very, very close teamwork. Concrete, reliable communication channels designed very clear from the first and first days of the organisation. It should be very clear who the credibility and accountability for each item of this event. And for sure that we work very close, I mentioned the ITU, and we start to itemise every aspect of the hosting and to decide about every focal point, every communication channel. This is a very important point. Second thing that we went a lot of rehearsal, a lot of discussion and inspection missions to ensure that everything is in order. This is also one, I think, main issue for the successful organisation for this event. And the other channel that the professional and fast response for all challenges during the hosting. For sure. This event is almost 50 days or 5 weeks event. During this hosting, for sure, we face some challenges, some problems. The issue that we should have the fast response, accurate response, and we be sure that there is no chance to have this problem to have it again. This is also very important. The response for the challenges should be very, very fast, very professional and to ensure that we will not see that again. I think this is also one of the very important aspects for the successful organisation of this event. I was going to say nothing has been too much effort. You've even had golf buggies taking people around this venue. It's a large venue, 846 metres from one side of the venue to the other. I've even taken advantage of those and done a few interviews in them as well. But I just really wanted to thank you very much for hosting us here. Do you think that you will be looking at doing another event on the back of this? Yes, for sure. I think this is only the start. And we look forward to many big mega-event and charm issues. Good. Well, I wish you the very best of luck with that. And thank you very much once again for joining us in the studio and for having us here in the wonderful Shabashay. Thank you.