 Welcome to the ITU studio at the Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where I'm very pleased to be joining the studio this morning Mr Bruno Ramos who is the regional director for ITU for the Americas Region. Bruno, welcome to the studio. Thank you so much Max. I'd like to catch up with you because the theme for this year's Plenipotentiary Conference is connecting the world together as you know. I wanted to ask you how has your region been making strides to get everyone connected over the last four years since the last Plenipotentiary Conference? Listen, in Americas we have very different regions. So we have a sub-region that is very developed and other parts of the region that are not. So the point that the region is focusing is on developing the infrastructure, trying to get support and also capacity to increase the infrastructure. So what we from the ITU are doing to support the countries? First, trying to help them develop new frameworks, new legal frameworks that will support a national base to increase the investments in the infrastructure. So this is a very important part. The second one is try to help them in the capacity building aspects just to create new people to support this. So there are two major points that we are doing there. So trying to increase and bring the service for everybody. So I think this is the two points. When members reach out to you at a conference like this, what are their major concerns? We have a few points, mainly in this Plenipotentiary Conference here, about new aspects, new studies, new activities for the union for the next four years. I think also in Americas we had a lot of discussions in the preparation for the conference, mainly in internet related aspects. Because of the increase of the new services, new applications. And even the part of the Americas region that don't have a lot of service providers or infrastructure providers, but they are very active in the new applications and development of softwares, etc. So this is something that the region prepared a lot. So Americas sent 54 contributions to the Plenipotentiary Conference. So it shows that Americas is very focused and put ITU in the highest priority in the country. So they are contributing a lot. And you've got a new director as well. Do you think that's going to change in terms of the priorities of the region? After being elected, a person should work for all countries. But for sure, considering the basis that after 12 years without any representative from Americas, right now Americas have two elected officials. They are going to work for all countries for sure. But they know very well the problems and maybe they can understand and try to help better the Americas region. Perhaps I could ask you about ITU's plans for the next few years for the Americas region? Yes, for the next three years. Actually, after the conference last year in Buenos Aires, the WTDC World Telecommunication Development Conference, so the members approved what we have to do for the next four years. So for 2019, just to give you some examples, we are trying to provide in Americas a new pilot model. So we are concentrating the events because in the past we had a lot of events. And for the countries to follow this, it's very difficult. So right now, the idea is to concentrate only in three weeks and divide the topics in the first week that will be in April on the innovation, new technologies to think on the future. So we are going to concentrate all activities in this week. In August, we will have a week on regulatory aspects and also in economics. So thinking about spectrum management, et cetera, et cetera. And in November, it's a big event that on digital inclusion. In this discussion, we are going to not only persons with disabilities, it's started with persons with disabilities, an event exclusively for persons with disabilities. But right now we are increasing to talk about gender, to talk about persons in a vulnerable situation, children, also indigenous people. So the idea for the next year is try to concentrate and try to give the countries the idea that they can focus in only three weeks and not having a lot of events. They don't have a lot of money to participate. So we are going to have this pilot next year. So I think it will be very good for the region to concentrate in these activities. What about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals? Are they playing a part in your plans and activities? For sure. I think it's our goal. Because as I said, during this WTDC 17 in Buenos Aires, all the objectives and also the outputs that are services and products that we, as Secretariat, we provide to the countries, so are based in the implementation of SGGs. So and also we have a very nice table that you can find in the ITU website, linking the objectives of developing countries and also the implementation of SGGs. So I think it's our objective and we are going to focus on this in the next years. It makes very clear links to it, I'm sure. And finally, do you have a message for participants here at the ITU Planning Potentiary Conference and also to our wider audience as well? Yes, I think all conferences of the Union, but mainly the Planning Potentiary Conference is an opportunity for people to work together. I think this is the most important thing. We know that in our world today we have different views, but we must think that we are living together in the same planet. So we need to try and also I think that members here are doing that. So work together in order to have a better life for everybody. Bruno Ramos, thank you very much indeed. Okay, thank you Max, for the opportunity.