 Welcome to ITU Telecom World 2018 here in Durban, South Africa, where I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio today by Ben Chitzonga, who is the Director of Finance for the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority. Mr Chitzonga, thank you very much indeed for being with us in the studio today. Thank you very much for welcoming me to the studio. Now I'd like to start off by talking about smart digital development. It's the catchphrase and the key words here for this year's conference. I just wanted to find out. What does smart digital development mean to you and how is Malawi working towards it? Malawi is working towards smart development by ensuring that people in the rural areas are not left behind. So there are a number of initiatives which government has set aside to make sure that we bridge the digital divide between the rural and the urban areas. One big initiative which Malawi is pursuing is a smart city project. In one of the cities in Malawi, which is called Blanta, we want to designate it as a smart city, it is a pilot project. So whatever successes which will come out of there should be rolled out across the nation. But also one aspect was that in Malawi we use not have national addressing. So it was a challenge for e-commerce, now we have introduced that national addressing. So we believe that by bringing these initiatives we should be able to bridge the gap between the rural and the urban area. What about innovation? What single innovation do you think will be the most transformative? To us we believe the broadband connectivity. Malawi is landlocked and the internet cost is very high. We believe if broadband connectivity is enhanced then we should be able to bring more services and more innovation to the nation. So as a nation there are a number of broadband initiatives which are being taken aboard. We have got a digital Malawi project but also we are laying national fiber broadband project. So all these projects we believe are once fully implemented we should be able to ensure that digitization of various government services is up to task. And what are your key aims in developing the sector in the next five years? In the next five years our aim is to ensure that government services are digitized. At the moment we have got various standalone government services like motor vehicle licensing, passport issuance, HEFE passport and these are standalone services but in the next five years we would want all these particular services to be coordinated so that we have a fully comprehensive government services providing digital services fully to the citizens of Malawi. Now you brought several tech SMEs here with you to ITU Telecom World. Wanted to find out what you are doing to encourage and stimulate entrepreneurship and also what do you think they will be getting from this experience? To us what we have realized is that usually people or young people in the colleges and the high schools are a good source for SMEs. So what we have been doing is to go out to those particular people to the students in high schools and the investors to bring them to these particular forums so that we have a solid foundation for future SMEs. I think in the past we have always come as a regulator alone with existing companies but we noted that I think the future for our country lies in the hands of these SMEs. So every ITU Telecom World we always make sure that we bring SMEs from these colleges and from those who have just listened to it graduated so that they should learn on what others are doing on the international stage. I wanted to ask you about membership, Malawi is a member of ITU, I wanted to find out what are the benefits of being a member of ITU? Being a member of ITU has really benefited Malawi a lot especially in forums like this where we come and we learn a lot. To us this is a learning process and it should always continue being a learning process. We have seen a lot of strides and also a lot of projects which ITU has re-assisted us. Last year we had the ITU experts coming to our country to assist us with E-Waste Management Policy. We do various such particular initiatives from ITU on such projects but also we have worked with ITU on the development of Cyber Security Act for Malawi. So such particular expertise we believe they are only possible because of our membership with ITU and we shall always cherish that good working relationship we have with ITU. We're very pleased to have you. Just finally what's the value for you of attending events such as ITU Telecom World specifically here in Hendoven? With ITU Telecom World to us we take it as a learning platform. Every year we come to Telecom World in new technologies being showcased. This brings us to know that one day we'll be able to make it, one day we'll be able to reach those particular levels where we'll have at least be fully digitised. So we do take this as an opportunity for us to learn a lot from our colleagues who are way ahead of us. We don't take ourselves as being law then we have to shun from such events but we take this as a very good learning point to develop our sector, the IT sector in Malawi. We wish you the very best. Thank you very much for being here and I hope you have a fruitful and rewarding presence here at ITU Telecom World. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.