 She has somehow found time and energy to complete her degree and to engage in additional studies in London as a Moe Ibrahim scholar. And she's not only a member of the World Refugee Council, but many other important organizations including the International Peace Initiative. And I can tell you from having heard her at the table that she brings to the pressing issues of our time a perspective that is enriched by her unique multi-layered personality. Aya likes to remind us that the power of the people is more powerful than the people in power. Something that she's helped demonstrate through her own efforts. Aya's own power derives from her voice. As you will hear, it is clear, it is coherent and it is courageous. And as we conclude the first day of our deliberations about technology and forced migration, so many of the issues involve the world's youth. I cannot think of anyone with a more pertinent or compelling message than our guest speaker this evening, Aya Shepi. That's one of the most amazing introductions I've ever had. I'm glad it's recorded. Thank you for letting everyone know who I am. I'm actually happy I'm the one speaking because I would break my fast in an hour, so it's better to be busy talking than focusing on my hungry stomach right now. I don't know where to start, but it's really difficult to be on this council when people are dying every day in the Mediterranean. And particularly this week, on Sunday, just two days ago, a boat that has the capacity to take 15 people was packed with 180 people and sank off the Mediterranean in the middle of the journey to Italy. And well, 52 people or dead bodies were found at the bottom of the ocean and were still counting. Four of them are pregnant women. Most of them are youth, half of them are Tunisians, the other half are migrant Africans from other countries. But these youth come from the most marginalized places in Tunisia. And even though it's the month of Ramadan, which is supposed to be the month of peace, sharing a meal and solidarity, this is a reminder that our youth are hungry and not satisfied and depressed, and they prefer to die in the Mediterranean than to live with no dignity. So just that made me think the last two days that we need help, we really need help, but we don't need aid, we don't need more debt, we don't need exploitation and corporate greed, we just need genuine help for the sake of humanity. And we're not getting that help for decades now. On the same day, there was, on Sunday, there was a 29 years old young man from Mali who was shot dead in Italy. He was a regular migrant, he had a name, he had a face, but these stories don't make the news here. And if the news come about outside world, it's about migrants causing crisis, we should keep them where they are, where they belong. And I think the Washington Post did cover on Tunisia, but the headline was the deadliest in the Mediterranean. I mean, come on, every day is the deadliest. This is not the deadliest, it's just that we found the boat, but there were many other missing boats. I think it's even more difficult to be an activist nowadays because you are supposed to stay sane in the middle of the madness, you're supposed to make sense of what happens and to turn it into policy recommendations and theorize it. When your people's lives are on the line, your family's life is on the line, your friends' lives are on the line. And the government is not listening, the international community is not acting, at least not at the pace of the tragedy. And to be honest, most of us activists are exhausted, really exhausted, even though we spend our energy and time in endless consultations and recommendation formulations, but we don't see the result. In our part of the words, the state of emergency has been there for decades. At least in Tunisia, the last two decades, thousands of people died in the Mediterranean, and no one cares from the so-called global north. At least that's how we feel that no one cares. And the few people who care are not able to drastically change the situation. Anyway, I'm supposed to talk about technology and empowerment and inclusion. I just wanted to share that with you because it's been painful in Tunisia right now. But I have to talk about empowerment because that's the only way out. There is no other solution. Many of the technology we used for political action was unintentionally made for that. And the same way technology has helped a lot and intentionally refugees. Without being developed for refugees like WhatsApp, Facebook, GPS, Google Translate, many of the refugees going on the Balkan routes were using it effectively to check updates on border control and border closure without knowledge of any local language. They were able to find their destination. Ironically, though, intentional efforts to use technology for refugees and for activism, it's much less successful. Many apps are not developed for that, are not updated, are not maintained. Many projects are start-up, two years it's gone. And many of the attempt to solution is eliminating the human connection rather than promoting connectivity. So we need to ask ourselves why is that happening and if actually we need to provide solutions to particular issues or we need to do it organically. If we look at Africa and Europe as two regions that have migration discussion we have to approach technology completely different. Just the way we approach refugees different. So if we talk about Africa, I think the priority for us is accessibility because 70%, 70% of Africa's population is offline. So we cannot talk about digital transformation and innovation without thinking of digital as a closed space but even dangerous space. And this, of course, is a gendered conversation. Women have much, much less access to internet and digital space and much less represented in the tech industry because of many structural reasons. Maybe we can summarize it in patriarchy without going into details. Now, digital is disruptive. I think many people in the tech industry love to say that. It's disruptive, it's borderless and so on. But for me, disruption of technology is its accessibility to people who would otherwise would not have access to it. Access to citizens, to IDPs, to refugees, to the most vulnerable. That's what makes technology disruptive. I can be sitting in a camp in Kenya on a wheelchair and I can do money transaction, get payment, do services through Ampesa which is a money mobile transaction used in East Africa. And even Western Union cannot do that because you have to physically move there but you can just do that from your mobile. Talking of homegrown solutions, Ampesa is a great example actually because the volume of Ampesa transaction in East Africa equals the volume of transaction of money around the world. The volume, not the value. The question remains how do we close the digital divide and how, which is huge by the way, and how do we democratize technology which eventually will democratize information. And information is power. And to be honest in most African countries, I'm not sure we are ready. I'm not sure our institutions are ready, infrastructure ready, our leadership is ready. They're amazing tech solutions in Africa but they are going ahead of policy. So it's a great solution but no government will accept it. It's a great solution but it's disconnected from existing structures and efforts. It's brilliantly technical but it's developed in isolation. So how do we develop a technology that is operating in the ecosystem of hosting communities, that's essential. And add to that we live in contradictions. So people do not have laptops and we teach them coding. That's fine and that's great to do but having access to knowledge without access to opportunity is like having access to frustration basically. I think for me the way forward, especially in Africa, is investing in infrastructure and in the host communities the same way we invest in refugees. If you want to really help refugees in Africa, invest in the host community basically. In Europe I think the discussion is completely different. It's about narratives which shape policy but not narratives just xenophobia, Islamophobia and so on. The narrative is actually policing people's identities. That's the consequence of narratives in Europe. So who shapes narratives? Whose voice is heard in the migration conversation? Who is painting in an insecure future? Why certain groups are portrayed as the problem not solution? Is there a crisis at all? Where is the crisis in Europe, in the US and the rest of the world? The fact is that the world's largest refugee is in Kenya and it's been there since 1992. 40 million IDPs in the world, 12 million of them are in Africa. Kenyans are hosting Somalis. Tanzanis are hosting Congolese. Congolese are hosting Burundians. Ethiopians are hosting Eritreans. This is how it works in Africa. One place is the home to the other. But the West doesn't learn from that. It doesn't look to these countries because the dominant narrative is of a crisis. And I wonder what technology can do about that. How technology can shift that. Now, Africa needs infrastructure and accessibility. Europe needs narratives to change to voices, participation, agency. I think both of them need empowerment. And we need tech for empowerment. I don't think we need tech for this group or that group. We need tech for people, the most vulnerable. And I'm saying this because the tech debate can become a self-celebratory exercise rather than really building strategy for empowerment. If we talk about companies, it means the future. They're talking about always related to monetary value. But if we talk about our future, it needs to be about freedom. So refugees need opportunities to create lives for themselves, not to depend on technology. And if technology is made to exploit or benefit from people, compromise with governments on data collection and make refugees or people reliant on technology, then it becomes part of the problem. And lastly, we need hope. I'm very expected of me to say, but we can't survive without hope. And technology really brings that excitement and creativity to find a place where you can exist, when you can express your identity, where you can be empowered, and you can use creativity. In the activism community, we talk a lot about systems change and maybe to nuance the policy voices in the room. Systems change can come from policy and political will, but sustainable systems change come only from organizing people used the most affected. So I'm hoping our conversation tomorrow will focus on empowerment, be centered on empowerment and agency, and not to create new problematic power dynamics. Thank you.