 Thank you for coming this morning to UNESCO to participate in the Policy Forum at the end of the Mobile Learning Week that, as every year, has taken over UNESCO headquarters in workshops and seminars, discussions and debates. Mobile Learning Week has become a flagship moment on the global education calendar. Last year, we teamed up with United Nations women to lead Mobile Learning Week and focus on women, ICT and connectivity. This year, we partner with the International Telecommunication Union and its Empowering Development Initiative, for which I am deeply grateful. UNESCO has a long-standing partnership with ICO, including in the Broadbank Commission for Sustainable Development, chaired by His Excellency President Paul Kagame from Rwanda and Mr. Carlos Slim Elu, President of the Carlos Slim Foundation. Launched by UNESCO and ITU, the Broadbank Commission in 2010 made big strides in promoting inclusive global roll-out of broadband for sustainable development. Just in two days from now, in fact, tomorrow, the Broadbank Commission will hold its annual meeting during the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, addressing new technologies for quality education for all. Mobile Learning Week is unique, ladies and gentlemen, in bringing together member states, ministries of education, of ICTs, with educators, regulators, private sector companies, international organizations, and I would say broadly innovators from across the world to explore the promise of new technologies. I wish to thank you all for coming to UNESCO to share your experience and vision. The world needs you more than today, more than ever. 2015 was a turning point in advancing the Millennium Development Goals and in setting an ambitious new agenda to guide countries for the next 15 years, building on lessons learned, agenda for the people, by the people, agenda that has the ambition to leave no one behind. One lesson is the unparalleled power of education as a human right, as a transformational force for societies, as a foundation for inclusion and sustainability. This is vital, vital for women and men across the world. Another lesson is that in education, access and quality must move forward together. We have seen how access without quality limits the value of education and how quality without access is inequitable and non-inclusive. This leads us to the third lesson, which is the imperative of making the most of development multipliers. These are forces that have an accelerating impact on progress across the world, on equity, on inclusion, on access, on quality and, of course, on sustainability. This, I believe, is how we should see new information and communication technologies and especially mobile technologies. With Member States, with all partners, UNESCO brought these ideas to shape the new 2030 agenda of sustainable development, especially a sustainable development goal for to ensure inclusive, inequitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all. Meeting the full promise of mobile learning, calls for supporting innovation and scaling up what works. It calls for rethinking what is possible in education, changing the nature of learning in a connecting age. To succeed, it calls for crafting and conducting well-designed mobile learning policies. And this is my first message today, the imperative for comprehensive mobile learning policies. Ladies and gentlemen, mobile technology has already revolutionized education. Education can be a way to revolutionize the use of mobile devices, to restore the limits of technology in the service of common goods. This week, it is called to overcome fascination, certain legitimacy for technology and make more courageous, more effective decisions, in the long run, to evaluate the impact of new technologies, to adapt pedagogical approaches, to rethink education. To succeed, it calls for common policy. Finally, it is the policy that will decide the conditions of access to technology, the ways of sharing, the equity in the use of mobile devices, and the training of teachers. It is the spirit of the platform that joins the UNESCO Intel dedicated to new technologies in educational policies. The platform that we have just launched has just two days, aims to support the development of future programs and policies. The same spirit guides the directors' principles for mobile learning that UNESCO published in 2013. Today, we are launching a comparative analysis of initiatives and policies of mobile learning in Latin America to remove the lessons of experience and develop what must be at the highest scale. The more technology is advanced, the more the political framework must be visionary in its objectives, flexible in its work, and aware that education will be done more and more with the means of mobile learning to give everyone an opportunity. The only way to keep the promises of technology in an environment composed of tons of new actors is to build multiple partnerships. They were at the heart of this week's discussion about the development of schools, the training of teachers for pedagogical content. In a broad measure, the quality of education will depend on the quality of these partnerships. And when we talk about innovation for quality, it is also about the quality of partnerships, of integrated policies that understand both connectivity, the devices, the infrastructures, the continuous, and the training of the teachers. UNESCO is very lucid about these experiences. There is no universal solution ready for employment. The best partner is the one who, in a dialogue, continues between all the actors to adapt to the problems of the future and to the future. That is why, ladies and gentlemen, this forum is so important. The success of the new agenda for sustainable development in the 2030 horizon depends on a large measure, on the success of the objective set for quality education. The challenge is very good and immense, but the potential of the tools at our disposal is immense as well. And I would like to thank you for coming so many times to UNESCO to contribute all together to make this potential a reality for everyone. I would like to thank you and I wish you a very good day of work. Thank you. This is Irina Bukova, director general of UNESCO, honorable ministers, deputy ministers, and representatives of the private sector, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, good morning to all of you, and very welcome to this forum. Central telecommunication union, the ITU, is pleased and honored to join UNESCO in co-organizing this policy forum, which is symbolic of the spirit of collaboration that needs to be strengthened between both our sector of activities. I'm referring to ICT and education. As director of the telecommunication development bureau of ITU, the UN specialized agency for information and communication technology, my principal objective is to connect the world, not only to connect the world, but to bring the benefits of ICT to all the people of the world, wherever they live and whatever their circumstances. It has become clear in our mind today that ICTs are a golden tool for accelerating the achievement of the sustainable development goals. Our estimation is that we have around 7.2 billion mobile subscriptions in the world, which means that, in average, we have almost one mobile phone per inhabitant in the world. And the good thing about the mobile technology is that when you go to rural areas, very remote areas, this technology has been accepted to people who never had access to any technology before. This is where it's become a golden tool for development. And, of course, it is our role to use this golden platform to extend the education, health, agriculture, all the developmental issues to the people who, for one reason or another, was denied the development. Let me commend UNESCO and your leadership, Madame Bukova, for initiating the Mobile Learning Week and organizing it regularly. I am so pleased to be here today. Talking about mobile learning, I recently read an interesting article on the BVT, featuring the history of a young lady teacher who had moved to Kenya to help start a program to support teachers, and who came up with the idea of teaching via mobile phone text messages. In this article, she said that when a technologist and a teacher put heads together, they are able to really think of solutions that work. I found this message so inspiring to me as an ITU. I hope it is for you also. Using a mobile device for learning is about empowerment. It is really about empowerment. It is about allowing students to take a more active role in their own education, both inside and outside the classroom. It is also about empowering teachers by giving them access to extremely rich resources to build and improve upon their teaching methods. It is also about lifelong learning, following the wise advice of Matt Magandy, which would leave our life as if we were going to die tomorrow, but we should learn and continue learning as if we were going to live forever. I had a dream that is now coming through. My dream is to transform the school bags of students into tablets and smartphones and to create an ecosystem of education where the teacher and students will have access to a smart device and broadband so that everyone can enjoy the inclusive and equitable quality education and access to lifelong learning opportunities. This is SDG 4. We should see all this as a great opportunity, not a challenge, not even a challenge. It is a great opportunity and everyone can benefit from the digital learning revolution. We live in a connected and increasingly digital world. What would be more useful than to invest in preparing our future generation to access better opportunities for their lives? Education for digital skills must take priority in education system, planning and policies alongside ways, teacher, training and development. Just three days ago, the world celebrated the International Women's Day under the theme, Planet 5050 by 2030. Step up for gender equality. ITU database shows that we have a gap at least of 11% in the use of Internet between men and women worldwide. Access to ICT is key for gender equality because it enables women to achieve greater independence, improves access to economic and social opportunities and facilitates empowerment. You will see it's the fourth or the fifth time I'm using the word empowerment. This is what it is about. Madam Director General, I know that gender equality is at the top of the mandate of UNESCO. I also know that it is your personal commitment and your personal priority, and we all commend you for that. Mobile learning ecosystem could also be a great opportunity for youth and SMEs to innovate for digital learning. Education is, to a large extent, culturally based. Therefore, the creation of adapted local content and applications can boost local job creation and entrepreneurship. Policymakers and regulators need, therefore, to carry out a full and extensive analysis of the purchasing power of their population and consider working with the ICT operators to introduce target measures for specific regions or specific social economic groups. In particular, you may want to explore the possibility of providing preferential rates for access to Internet with the students. Close cooperation between the education and ICT sectors is crucial to align policies, and that's why we believe that this policy forum is extremely important to create synergies between the two sectors. Above all, ladies and gentlemen, this policy forum is about creating together, I say together, an ecosystem where everyone can play its role in perfect synergy with others. Last but not least, I would like to say word to the teachers, you are the most important piece of this puzzle. I hope you have got a lot of teachers here today. You are the very important piece of this puzzle. You are the first people who should receive the pedagogical and technical support necessary to maximize the benefit from mobile learning. We, and trust our children through your care and believe that it is you who should lead the digital learning revolution. I hope that this dialogue we are starting today will continue in the future and will be taken to regional and national level. Alone, one cannot achieve much. But together, we can change the world. Thank you very much, Madame Irina Bukova, for being with us today here and for your inspiring opening speech. Actually, it is not a surprise for those who know you for your commitment, dedication and passion, particularly as Co-Vice-Chair or the Board of Commission. I wish you a very good day and I thank you very much.