 Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, for the afternoon session. I have with me here a panel of distinguished from the various companies and regulators. And I'm pretty sure that having listened to the discussion from the ministers early on about the different challenges that we have, that the panelists here will provide you with some perspective on how to address some of the challenges they face. Some of you probably know that sometimes we actually think that the approach to some of these issues is that one should speak all. But in most cases, one should speak some of us. So I think with the experience and the different organization that these panelists actually represent, hopefully they'll give you a fuller of perspectives on the challenges and how they approach, how they address some of these challenges. I won't take up more time because you probably can see we have about 10, 11 panelists. And similar to the earlier session, each panelist will have three minutes. And after all the panelists and I'll open up the floor for questions from the floor, given if we have more time, then I'll invite the panelists to come in further. But given our limited time, I'd like to actually start off with Mr. Adam Polos, Director of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Adam. Hello? OK, now it's working. Thank you. Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, thank you for giving me the floor. And thank you, colleagues, for attending this session, distinguished ladies and gentlemen and excellencies, all protocols observed. It's perhaps a good thing to be the first in a session like this. And I hope I can introduce a few thoughts that I've heard in the last day or so to see if I can contribute. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction is the UN agency that is the custodian of the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction, which carries from 2015 to 2030. We organized with the gracious support of the government of Japan, the Sendai Conference in Sendai, Japan, March of last year. That was the first in the 2015 development agenda conferences, followed by financing for development, and then the SDGs conference in September in New York, and then the COP 21. What's very clear is that disaster risk reduction touches on all of those agendas. It's not an isolated set of activities. And I think we're seeing more and more of that in the course of this conference. Let me thank the government of Kuwait for their support for this meeting and for their leadership in this sector and in overseas development support, in fact. One of the good things of maybe it's just a bit of dumb luck, but yesterday there was a cover page article in the paper indicating the losses from the snowstorm in North America of about a billion in that one day. And then today I was fortunate to have yet another good quote that I can share with you today, which is that Kuwait and spending spree on development projects. The government stays the course despite oil slump and budget deficits. Kuwait, for those into trivia, is the largest per capita contributor to overseas development globally. So we are very fortunate to be in a country that is very generous and very giving. As we start the post 2015 agenda, this is the very first meeting in 2016 that looks at these complex interlinkages between the development agendas, among the development agendas. So we have certain drivers of global risk, poverty, inequality, climate change, rapid urbanization that are affecting our world. They're happening at a very rapid rate. At the same time, climate change and other adaptation measures are not keeping pace. And so the complexities are mounting. If we look at the losses in the built environment, that is in the sort of physical infrastructure losses, our own research in the global assessment report indicates some loss of 315 billion annually in that built environment. That doesn't take into account other issues related to agriculture and economic loss, but simply the one-to-one ratio of replacing a school that may have collapsed in an earthquake, for example. So the numbers are enormous. And we hear lots of different discussions in the last day or two of what's the right ratio? A dollar spent here results in the savings of X dollars in the future. Those calculations are a bit complex because we're using some different mathematics, but the fact is that it makes very, very good sense to look at disaster risk reduction. And then of course, for this conference, what is the role that ICTs might play in mitigation? There are a couple of things that I think I want to just put on the floor and hope that there are some use. The first is improving and understanding disaster risk. In UNISDR, we helped governments, some 85 governments now in creating disaster loss databases. These are very practical tools for governments to understand exactly what they've lost or could lose in the event of a natural disaster. And when we talk about all of government engagement, we always want ministries of finance to hear these numbers and to hear how it is that a particular natural event is impeding on other development agendas. We also have the opportunities of investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience. So how can ICTs and other technological science community contribute to making wise investments? And there again, we can look at some things like land use planning and other geospatial tools that a number of colleagues in this room and even on the panel may speak to that are a benefit to the disaster preparedness and disaster risk reduction agendas. Then we have the whole piece on access to vulnerable populations. We keep talking about rural populations and poverty communities, communities that are perpetually in cycles of poverty because of natural disasters. Being poor, you're not immune to the impacts of disaster but it's very hard to then crawl out of poverty on a repeated basis. Disabled communities. If you are physically disabled, you're six times more likely to be more seriously affected or even killed in a disaster than someone who might be able-bodied. So these are important communities. To put again some numbers into perspective, these are estimates that have come from UNCTAD, the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development. The annual shortfall in investments for SDGs, the critical areas of SDGs education, water, sanitation, is some 2.5 trillion. So we're talking enormous resources. That means that managing disaster risk is actually a good thing from a purely economic standpoint. But I'll bring all of us back to the subheading of this conference, which is saving lives. This is the business that we're in to the extent that all of us contribute, can contribute to saving lives that we've done something that we can all be proud of. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll end, I'll only encourage the colleagues on the panel and on the floor to see where we can make these linkages, where the private sector and technological communities can work closely with international organizations, how governments can share information cross-border with each other. Mother Nature doesn't stop at a border. Mother Nature doesn't need a visa when she wishes to come in with a cyclone. And we as a community need to work together and be very clear in what our goals are. And we need to act now. This is one of the agendas across the global spectrum that is actually understood and appreciated by everybody. So with that, I thank you for your attention. You're welcome. Now I'd like to invite Christen Carter, Vice President, Marketing and Communication of Thorea for his day in the venture. Thorea, telecommunications. For those who may not know, we are, through our network, we cover Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia as well. We provide handsets, broadband terminals on our own network. But our actual fundamental purpose of the reason we exist as a company is to save and improve lives. That's what we do, that's what we want to do more of. So in looking at the role that ICT has to play in this area, it's fundamental. It's quite fair to say that it can save lives, but it's certainly very true to say as well that it can save more and that we need to do more. The need is certainly there as evidenced by the launch earlier this month of the OCHA Humanitarian Affairs Report, an event hosted in Dubai where Thorea has its head offices and indeed where we helped host the U.N. widget conference last year too. There are a number of fundamental elements and areas of focus that we need to address if we are to ensure that we save and improve more lives than we are already. It's important, first of all, to address everything on a long-term basis. That's one of the reasons we signed the Crisis Connectivity Charter in Geneva in October. Because fundamentally, readiness is all. The ability to be prepared, although as Adam rightly said, crisis doesn't respect borders or visas. It also has an unpredictable travel plan, but we can be for sure, for one thing, we know that crisis will strike again somewhere. There are obviously high-risk countries identified and we can focus there too. But wherever help is needed, there are ways in which we can make sure that access moves as swiftly as possible. We need to get our equipment in the right place, in the right hands at the right time. That equipment needs to be made affordable to those people who need to use it and flexible price plans and an ability to make sure that we're only charging when equipment is used, for example, is something that is easily remedied. We need to provide training and support for people. Our equipment, once you know how to use it, is very reliable, it's very secure, and we just need to make sure that in the right hands, people are able to use it with confidence. As a convergence of technology is required, as we bring a raft of different solutions to a problem and a situation, and the ability to use our network and focus it where the help is needed most in terms of dynamic resource allocation is also important too. Fundamentally, we need to ensure that equipment, back to the point about readiness, our equipment is tested, tested, and tested again. It's ready, it's packaged, it's complete so that if an antenna is needed or a solar panel is needed or cables are needed, they're there ready to go with our equipment too. That equipment should be used in drills and exercises, search and rescue teams should know instantly how to use equipment that they will be using when they need to use it swiftly. So we need to integrate ICT into disaster management plans. Planning and preparation goes beyond that though. With early warning systems as they are, we also need mechanisms for delivery. Yes, we've saved people, but we've watched an increasing frustration over the course of the last 12, 18, 24 months as migrants have suffered on board ships, overloaded, and we've not been able to find a mechanism to get the equipment that they need to them in time to save lives. That has to change. Pre-deployment systems are fundamentally vital. That is why the Tampere Convention is so integral to the long-term success of humanitarian activity wherever and whenever it's needed. We need to override security concerns. We also need to streamline first responder protocol. So fundamentally, the equipment is there, it's been taken to parts of the world that need it most. It needs to be taken again sadly in the future, but when it does, let's please make sure that there's less bureaucracy and more willingness to arrive at speedy transfer of that equipment to where it's needed. Thank you. Thank you, Christian. Christian raised a very important thing that was raised early on in our ministerial discussion, especially about getting the equipment closer to where disaster might happen. Like in the case of Tom, I had some discussion about we have other islands, and then if there is a cyclone, it will take a couple of days before we can respond because the airport might be closed. There's no way we're going to take a ship down there. So if you have the equipment pre-positioned down there, then there's that possibility that that might be of great help, especially in the first couple of days after a disaster. So it will be good to actually get the views of the panelists on similar kind of intervention. As earlier discussed in the ministerial, one of the issues is actually identifying what role to organization play. I mean, you don't want to duplicate each other's work. There's lack of coordination if you have all this. We've got the intention, want to help you. So we'll be very interested to hear what my next panelist is going to say, Mr. Jose Toscana, the director general of the international telecommunications satellite organization. Mr. Jose. Thank you, deputy prime minister. Good afternoon to all of you. Let me start by thanking ITU for organizing this event and the quality government and people for having us here and having us host for the event. Let me also say that I'm representing neither an operator nor a regulator. I represent the international telecommunications satellite organization, which is an international organization treated by its organization with 149 member states which is working in the area of satellites. When I was asked to participate in this event, I decided to be paired a full PowerPoint presentation which is available on the website of the event and which tries to identify some aspects and some actions that we believe are crucial for the theme that we are talking in this conference. Due to the time that was given to me, I will only stress some of these points, but please, I'm at your disposal, either to respond to specific questions on a one-to-one basis if you so wish or after the event I'm completed if you are at disposal. You will not be surprised if I start by saying that ICTs play a crucial role against natural disasters which are triggered either by climate change or humanitarian emergencies. ICT communications are vital for early warning systems, the immediate aftermath and recovery process of disasters and agencies responsible for international disasters and humanitarian response must incorporate our communications, ICT, as a critical infrastructure for international disaster preparedness, response and recovery planning. What are we doing with our member states? What are the steps that we consider essential to establish communications for disaster mitigations? We have identified four steps that we work with our member states. The first one being risk identification. What do I mean? I mean that in order to reduce the impact of a future disaster, it is important to identify and assess the risks a country is likely to face that's one aspect that we invest very much with our member states. The second step relates to reducing underlying risks. This can include, for instance, reinforcing critical facilities and developing land use zones. First step relates to preparedness and early warning systems. It is crucial in the data context that communities can be able to quickly and efficiently respond in the event of a disaster, something that we invest very much with our member states. First three, and finally, the first step that we have identified relates to knowledge management and education. In fact, the promotion of risk awareness in vulnerable communities is an integral step in mitigating disaster risk and implementing risk reduction techniques. But for all of this to happen, there is one aspect that could consider ideal and where we invest very much together with our member states and that relates to regulation. And enabling regulation is key. How can we do whatever the aspects of this enabling regulation? Firstly, we need to incorporate disaster risk reduction and disaster communications consideration into ICD development plans. We consider this to be crucial. Secondly, we must adopt simple, transparent and non-discriminatory authorization procedures and licensing conditions for ICD services. I've come to the many cases where people who are going to help complain about all the procedures, all the license, all the problems that they have and they face in specific countries. Third, we must facilitate testing and type approval requirements by recognizing foreigner type approvals. Fourthly, we have to develop procedures to efficiently address interface considerations and coordinate requirements when allocating spectrum. Fifth, we have to ease requirements for land rights or restrictions on use of specific ICD resources to maximize the number and kind of networks which are available. Sixth, we have to facilitate to transport the flow of end-user equipment. And finally, we have to cooperate with stakeholders in development of policy and regulations. One aspect of what we are doing is to work with our member states to incorporate some of the same, if possible, all these principles in their ICD development plans. Let's now talk about infrastructure. Today, we have a series of technologies that we can think of. We have fiber and somaline cab access. We have terrestrial microwave systems. We have satellite. Well, I'm representing a satellite organization, so I will not be surprised when I say that satellite technology offers many advantages when it comes to emergency communications before, during and after a disaster. During times of disaster, when other communication systems are either destroyed or overloaded, satellite communications equipment can be used immediately to support relief efforts. Ground infrastructure is often damaged and can be used less during natural disasters and conflicts. Again, solution here and the response is satellite. During this morning, I believe the minister of Zambia raised the question of the pricing of satellite services. I'm completely conscious of that, and that's why we worked very much with companies, satellite companies, into a site that we are responsible to supervise and other companies in the satellite arena in order to make sure that pricing is one which can be afforded by the majority of the countries. In our case, we have pricing schemes which are applicable to a certain number of countries and which tries to make satellite communication affordable to those countries. That's an area we are very much working with our member states and very much working with the satellite industry. What are the other specific aspects that we do as an international organization? Firstly, we ensure that the inter-sets, which is the major satellite company, provides global connectivity and global coverage. We want to ensure that every country in the world has an infrastructure that can be used when necessary and when needed. That's one of our goals, inter-sets as towards specific obligations, and that's one of the things that we do. Secondly, we try to promote the cooperation of the satellite industry. We have been able to do it and we just recently signed an MOU between the ITU, ourselves and inter-sets, which will enable for free capacity to be available when necessary in specific countries or in countries where a disaster occurs. That's one area we invest very much. Thirdly, we participate in specific initiatives. We are partnered in one of the ITU initiatives for the Pacific Islands. That's an initiative which tries to connect ICT for development with ICT for emergency communications. The idea here is to have partners, satellites or industry partners, which will make available resources to establish communication networks. In the case of Pacific Islands network, this is a network which will connect the islands of the Pacific. Capacity is made available by inter-sets, equipment is made available by inter-sets, and we invest very much in capacity building. Education, in my view, how to use equipment is something which is essential. We participate in this project. We are now discussing with the ITU a similar project for the Caribbean Islands. And the fourth area I would like to mention is the area of capacity building. We consider capacity building to be essential and we have invested very much on this area. We do it through partnerships with other international organizations. We have partnerships with the ITU, we have partnerships with regional and other international organizations. We invest and fund at 100% the training or personnel, the training of the people. One of the speakers, I believe it was this morning and today mentioned, okay, we don't have the equipment. But even if the equipment is there, if people do not know how to use it, what's the use? So we invest very much on educating. We invest very much on capacity building. This is one of the major aspects of our activity. Well, I think that I've gone over my three minutes. I will keep it at this stage. Thank you very much for your attention and then you are the sponsor for any further questions. Thank you all. Thank you, Jose. The initiative that he mentioned about in the Pacific, we are part of the, we're always one of the beneficiaries of that initiative whereby we put some of these systems in other islands, especially in schools. And they act as like a backup to the telecom system. So if the telecom system goes down, we can always fall back on this particular system they have in place. So it did actually benefit not just on the social side of the schools, providing access to the internet and so forth, but also act as a backup system for in terms of disaster and so forth. So thank you, Jose. Now I'd like to invite the engineer Mustafa Alhafiz from the National Telecommunication Corporation and the chair of the National Committee for Emergency Telecommunication of Suntar for his views. Yes. Thank you, Excellency, for this opportunity. I'm very glad to be here and this panel. And I think now I'm going to turn from the operators and vendors to the regulators. I have to change to other language. Please put on your headphones. Uh... In addition to the resources that human beings have. There were many different ways of using it. Uh... In the future, in the present, now you can use the telecommunication method or the telecommunication method. In our experience in Sudan, this means that the telecommunication method or telecommunication method uh... can be used as a backup method and a backup method for the use of the telecommunication method. And it can affect the nature of the telecommunication method if we don't know what to say in the fact that this is a backup method. Uh... Maybe that's why the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Information are building a meaningful network with the support of telecommunications companies. This network was developed in the previous year, and it includes its employees, the mobile employees, and it includes the organization forces, and the different levels. These are the ways to help the people working themselves. They use different means of transportation, if they were on the national route, or even use other networks, or the infrastructure for the different networks. and that is the only way to stop the attacks. And even that is the only way to stop the attacks. There are other ways to stop the attacks. As you know, at the end of the previous year, during the international meeting of the Soviet Union, there have been restrictions for the BBDR. And that is why we, in Sudan, have been providing the necessary restrictions for the use of the BBDR, and that is a replacement for the calls in the case of stopping the calls completely. That is why we see the use of the BBDR as a replacement for the use of the BBDR as a replacement for the calls completely. At the same time, the new restrictions have been prevented at the end of the year. In our opinion, this is a replacement for the use of the BBDR in cases of crisis and emergency cases, and in the case of changing the information to the world in a faster and cheaper way. And we as a nation see that this is one of the most important restrictions for the use of the BBDR as a replacement for the use of the BBDR. We also want to remind the brothers, if it was in Syria, Mars, etc. And this is for the rest of the world, and we are from this committee to present these problems to the service providers in emergency cases for the rest of the world. We are now working in a good and responsible way. In the coming few days, we will continue to work in the future. Thank you very much, Mr. Hafiz. Our next speaker is Mr. Morif from Japan. Before I give him the floor, I'd like to actually thank him. He was the chief organizer of the ITU meeting on ICT indicators. I think having those indicators is very important to actually measure the progress of your development in relation to ICT. So with that, Mr. Kiyoshi Mori, the Director General of Internal Affairs, Global ICT Strategy Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication of Japan. Thank you. Firstly, as a Japanese, I thank the ITU, all member states and private sector members who have so much assistance at the time of Great Earthquake, which hit Japan five years ago. For example, the state of Kuwait provided us five million barrels of crude oil, so many soccer balls, stationaries, and smiles. I would like to show you a good example of the ICT utilization at the time of the Great Earthquake. Key power plants and communication methods were totally damaged in the Northeast of Japan, and it lasted for more than a week because of the continuous earthquakes after that. We could not get any information about which roads were not damaged and found severe difficulty in making appropriate rescue plans. One day after the Great Earthquake, a couple of automaker companies began to provide the probe data which shows the actual places where each car was moving. Through dotting this data, we began to know which roads could be available, and then our government could make appropriate delivery plans of food and goods to the affected areas. A couple days later, a non-governmental organization took initiative to make the common format of this data and made it open to the public so that drivers could get necessary information through their car navigation devices or through the internet. This method can be applied not only to developed countries but also to developing countries. Japan cooperates with the ITU for the ever-related information sharing using this method. I would like to say that the advancement of the ICT would enhance the total quality of the disaster management drastically. In the near future, if each car can be equipped on-board Wi-Fi base station which provides on-site connectivity for mobile phone users, each car can be in an information hub anytime, including the time of the disaster. I would like to discuss those kinds of issues during the course of this forum. For the Sendai conference, about 6,500 people from 187 countries gathered and adapted the Sendai framework. I'm glad that the output in Sendai was really reflected to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Paris Agreement of the COP21. And I'm really excited that GET 2016 is now being held right here to further strengthen these international frameworks. In that meaning, I really appreciate the great efforts by the ITU and the State of Kuwait to organize and host this conference. Thank you very much. Shukran Jajira. Thank you, Mr. Mori. Very helpful in terms of trying to give to our time frame. We have a number of panelists who couldn't actually make it here to most of them connecting flight via the US and you probably have heard or have seen the snowstorm currently in the US. Unfortunately, we don't have Tatiana Lorenz or Moho Kendi from Sierra Leone, but on the pride side, we have here two new panelists. And with that, I'd like to invite Peshmer Patel from INMASAT for his interventions. Protocols observed. Firstly, let me thank the government of the State of Kuwait for their excellent hospitality. INMASAT basically was founded in 1979 through the United Nations by the IM organization, the international maritime organization. And in fact, Kuwait and the Kuwait government was one of the founders of INMASAT. And they have been a leader ever since in terms of disaster communication, particularly for the maritime community. They were one of the first to have a gateway, INMASAT gateway for rescue coordination services. So we have a long term, we have a fairly long relationship with the State of Kuwait in terms of providing INMASAT services. INMASAT DNA is very much that of saving lives. It was founded on the basis of protecting saving lives in the high seas. Given the HF, the poor communication, the vessels used to have, and having a global satellite, a network of global satellites with 99.9% network reliability today, 100% redundancy in our satellite networks with full global coverage. So we cover both Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, basically up to North and South in terms of 75 degrees in latitude. So fairly, a very extensive coverage globally. In terms of the network reliability, as I say it's 99.9%, 100% redundancy in our satellites network. And basically we have our products and services which are very much designed for critical communications. A vessel in high seas can press a button if it's in distress. And therefore that aspect of it has been carried forward when I joined INMASAT in the early 80s, 84, 85 when INMASAT was two, three years old. We then took the global maritime distress and safety services forward into the aeronautical satellite communication. And again we have safety services for aeronautical for cockpit correspondence as well as tracking of flights and so on today. So we carried it from the high seas to the aeronautical community and we also have it for the land community. And I think when we talk about, let me prime this, when we talk about the disaster risk reduction and disaster management, we tend to, there are basically primarily three approaches. Cyclical approach we've been hearing about in terms of mitigation which is critical because every dollar invested in mitigation saves $10. Just to give an example of some documents I came across in Iran which talked about one to 10 ratio. Mitigation preparedness is critical and then response and recovery. But if we done the job well in mitigation and preparedness then response would be quite rapid, therefore save more lives and recovery in terms of the rebuild of the infrastructure. So cyclical approach is one. Spatial approach which basically goes down to some of the presentation that was given yesterday at a local level. You can have a community where a base station can cover a certain geographical area. Similarly today's satellite technology with its narrow beams, regional beams, global beams can allow you to have that spatial approach as well. We have steerable beams as well to add more capacity if necessary and if required, particularly in crisis war crisis when you have war situation. So spatial approach at local, national, sub-regional and regional level as well as global level. And then you have the policy approach and the policy which really is governed by governments and institutional organizations in terms of standardization into operability and the management, the institutional setup within the government. So take the three approaches and you can apply to the session that we're addressing today in terms of risk reduction. Today's satellite technology is ubiquitous. We have equipment today for M2M, for SCADA, for mitigation and preparedness. So when we talk about tsunamis, when we talk about earthquakes, when we talk about flooding, flood plains, any natural calamity or disaster that we anticipate can be monitored with fairly low cost networks and we have put some of these networks in place today. So we're all looking at hybrid solutions. We're not saying everything has to be satellite but given the fact that satellite can provide extensive coverage, geographical coverage, national, regional and so on. So technology is their hybrid technology which allows you to have early warning systems whether we're looking at M2M or SCADA applications, very low data rate, to high data rate services, whether we're looking at a few hundred kilobits up to 50 megabits, capability of solutions are there today and they're available. And there are, Mr. Chairman here, there are fairly low cost solutions that can be put together. The issues we have is also on the regulatory side, I think that's been touched upon by my colleague from Thorea in terms of minimizing the bureaucracy, getting, if we have got a disaster on our hand or crisis, then let's get the equipment into the country. Therefore, there has to be minimal bureaucracy. There has to be almost open access to those areas of concern in order to have that. Now, so regulatory aspects of it, Mr. Chairman, has to be dealt with and we need to cover that aspect. Operational side, again, government have the institutional setup and command control network in order for us to work with the right agencies at the right level. Again, too many people, too many cooks, as we say, can spoil things. So therefore, let's minimize that and have a proper structure in places as part of the national, sort of national disaster management team where we can work with different government agencies, we can work with other organizations and it can be much more effective in case of response and recovery situation. In terms of disaster management itself, again, the satellite technology and equipment that we have, Mr. Chairman, is highly portable, it's very flexible, it's rapid response, it's immediate. So let's work on mitigation and preparedness and prepare countries which have these calamities, often and frequent, can be addressed with solutions that are there, advanced warning systems and then have, again, go on to the challenges of capacity building, getting that technical expertise across to these communities at a local level. I went to a situation where in Bangladesh, often every year, Bangladesh is hit with a lot of cyclones from the Indian Ocean and every year, you find the towers, the base stations, the terrestrial network collapse completely. Now, they have bunkers so they have a siren warning system which gets the people into the bunkers when the cyclone is before the cyclone hits. So there is an advanced warning system. They go inside the bunkers, in the bunkers, they have satellite communication equipment. So once the cyclone is over, they have connection, they are informed that the cyclone is over, they come out, they look at the damage and they actually then have the satellite communication where the local communities are actually trained on the equipment so that they are actually in touch with the right agencies and basically then food and water and everything is provided to them. So there is an infrastructure that we can learn. There are a lot of best practices in various countries that we can actually benefit from as well that I think ought to come out in this conference as well which we can then adapt and scale to other countries as well. So Mr. Sherwin, with that, there are challenges. We need to look at the capacity building side of things, look at the technical expertise. There is the funding issue of course which again can be addressed in terms of these kind of areas but I believe we can overcome these various challenges as long as there is a will, there is a way that we can find a way forward to work with the various partners. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mr. Patel. Another who stepped in was of the some unfortunate second sense some of our panellists. Mr. Olivia Vantam from UNITA was willing to share his views with us this afternoon. Thank you. You are excited to see Mr. Chair. Good afternoon everyone. So I'm very pleased to be here and thank you for ITU for the opportunity to join this panel and for the Government of Co-Ed for organizing this event. So a lot has already been said or today, this morning now with our fellow panellists. But I would like to share our humble experience of my organization that will certainly give some resonance to what you've already heard. So I'm working with the UN program called UNOSAT aims at leveraging the satellite technologies and especially the satellite imagery to various field of applications and in support to different UN agencies and among which disaster risk reduction is a central part. So UNOSAT is part of the UN Institute for Training and Research. So these are two important words in what we are doing and what we are discussing today. So basically we could be seen as a center of excellence within the UN in the use of satellite technology. So maybe what is GIS? Basically everything on Earth has a geolocation. So we are using this to get better information. So GIS is basically a software that allows you to superpose different level of information. For example we are talking about floods but floods in the middle of a plane with nobody in there is a god gift, it's not a disaster. It's when it comes to have people on the same piece of land that it becomes a disaster. So you need to know about the world network. So it's basically superposing these different levels of information that you can come up with with analytics. So basically that's what we are doing every day and in support to our member states and also in partnership with other agencies. So it's a very booming field. So basically when we talk about technology you almost cannot keep pace if you really want to be at the top. It's very difficult. So we are an applied research program which aims at also supporting the colleagues with as much advanced solutions but also at an affordable price and that really answers their requirements. To have the most fancy things just to have it. To have it to support and have a meaningful impact. So as we would like to mention a few of our activities and important aspects. So you have more and more sources different types of satellites different ways of collecting information you have the power the crowd what we can call. So basically citizens are not anymore a victim or an agent but they can also become part of the solution. We developed a flood early warning systems basically models that helps to foresee some the floods using modeling technologies that we can apply globally at various scales of course the more you work with the national authority the more you have data the more you can be precise and forward looking. The importance of resilience basically after disaster to build back smarter let's say so not just only we do the same. So and this knowledge we develop in the mapping field supporting the countries we also share it via training. It's not us delivering the knowledge we share our experience but also we during the trainings as we are training professionals we benefit very much from their experience as well from what they have to say because it informs us very much about what is needed when how we can even make a better work and have a good impact which is very important during the trainings. So the importance of data sharing of course with different layers of data it's not rare that even within a country you have difficulties of sharing your data. So at the international level it's maybe understandable even if so some basics should be shared naturally but sometimes even within countries the Ministry of Transport have some data, Ministry of Environment have some others and Ministry of Interiors and all these sometimes are not really in sync so it's very important to share all these different types of data. So basically yes I would finish on this is the interconnections which are critical interconnections between the data sources between the different stakeholders, private sectors government agencies, international organizations which are all their value added and their comparative advantage. And how technology is a way to basically do, in doing in implementing using these tools it's a way to concretely address the challenges which have been raised today and it's not for the sake of the technologies really about the people that the subtitles here says what you do with it it's like a hammer that you can destroy something or you can really build something which are something of a piece of art. So it's really amazing the power of the technologies to other people. Thank you very much. Thank you very much I think that's very it's the same example like because ICT is basically a tool and so far how you use that to mitigate disasters and so forth. I think that's one of the important lessons. My next speaker is Mr. David Gomez Chairman of the Board forgive me if I got this wrong Agencia National Tasks Communication Course from Chairman first of all I want to take this opportunity to thank you and the government of Kuwait to give me this opportunity to be here and share with you our experience during prevention and the reaction in case of the measures of course I'm coming from Chairman from Regulator this is National Authority of Communication of Kuwait this is why I want to share with you our experience in the first time as regulator and the second as entity which support the government of Kuwait in the emergency situation. Basically work as I said work in two fronts the first one in prevention this is most important and the second one hope to be in the situation of the really emergency situation as regulator working we have two roles the first one is to establish the rules and fix the parameters, technical parameters balance between different players and stakeholders how they need to inter connect how they can work during emergency situation as separate network as so one single or unified communication this is why we establish, we fix we prepare the national unified communication network that will be used during dialing for police for different players they working but during the emergency situation they can to be together and understand how to be this is a first role as regulator the second moment as I said we support government to implementation to implementation of the implementation of the center of emergency situation this is which we support the single national number of emergencies 112 of course during this process it was very hard to be in same table with different players with different stakeholders and we plan and prepare the project and now we are in the process to implementation of this center of the of the emergency and management of emergency situation tomorrow I think tomorrow I will present this case but what I want to say as regulator is very important is very important during the emergency situation to be with or operate not as regulator to put in place laws, the rules but how to cooperate as I said how to cooperate and be ready to help each one this is why in the last volcano eruption unfortunately our national network emergency network is now is obsolete the technology is changing very quickly but when you work very well as I said with cooperation not to see to monetize who is following very well the law I can repeat the cooperation this situation of the emergency for me is very important this is why we work with all operators in the field to guarantee the fundamental what we need is the communication this is what I can say to you and thank you for your attention thank you David next speaker in the Pacific because we are small island developing states there are certain issues that we like to come together as a region to try and address so it's with interest that I introduce a new speaker Mr. Abdulgarim Somalia the secretary general of the African telecommunication union on how they approach it in the African region thank you thank you excellent let me first on behalf of the African telecommunication union my gratitude to the host country and I to myself and all those partners who are here today so let me probably do like my friend brother Mustafa to another language because you know here as I use a multiple language so let me speak in French just to at least to help our translator for French or interpreter to take small break so I just wanted to say that I wanted to change a little to give advice to other languages like French and maybe I just wanted to say that the African as you notice is not a continent as we say the other natural catastrophes like the other continents but however we have another as we say catastrophe which is probably more complicated than the natural catastrophes which are what we call epidemics you know what we call epidemics of cholera epidemics of Ebola and also among so many others so from the point of view of the legal arsenal since the African countries were not prepared for all those who concern the urgent communication because it was spread however today we have seen that we can fight on another form of catastrophe which are the epidemics and I think that the éviter had to intervene to solve or help countries like Sierra Leone to fight against Ebola to know how to subscribe I think today it is another opportunity for other African countries to see how we are going to use ethics to be able to fight against especially what we call the epidemics of men but also the epidemics as we also call others called the economies of nature such as cricket we had to create an application system which will inform the political leaders to pay attention in such a zone where you have such epidemics that are manifesting in such a zone where you have such epidemics especially in a continent where you have a lot of transport but also certainly I will return to the Zambia occupation which had caused the problem of accessibility because until now we still do not have the total coverage so that we can inform all that is happening in each village in the African level because people do not have the means of communication until now I think it is also another problem for us before even thinking about the applications we have to ensure the total coverage of our territory I think it is very important I agree with my friends from ImerSat and Itso because we still have other means that is why at the last conference we insisted on what is enough spectrum for all technologies because we are a very large continent we will not always say that we will focus our access to the tech on such technologies as the optical fiber Africa is so vast that we cannot pull the cable everywhere because we can use other means of complementary communication such as satellites I cannot satisfy the demand of its financial excellence the reduction of costs of communication by satellites but our role in the African language is to reinforce the capacity of our members and I want to know how to discuss how to negotiate with the different partners to find a solution and I think that the liberation will also contribute to this I think that the telecom operators are also invited at a level of advantage to know the costs as we say the most accessible and the most favorable to the African consumers so I think that for us the ethics today are really a very important level to be able to sit what we call in French jargon the fight against the great I think it's very important for us as an African country to use this I even saw a very important example earlier with the Burundi I think with some partners like the UNICEF and others they created a platform for everyone to be able to inform quickly the health care centers or also to inform the villagers to pay attention to the campaign of sensitization tomorrow the vaccination campaign will start we have to bring our children to the vaccination center so that for us these are the applications that we can use at an ethical level to be able to make the health of our citizens to be protected I think that as I used the language I spoke a little faster I want to stop here to thank you more I think that today the African countries are here to be able to share and above all to take the hope of other countries to be able to implement these different strategies at a local level but also regional and other institutions that are fighting in relation to all that concerning the integration of the partner so thank you very much Thank you very much Thank you Mr. Somailo Our next speaker is Mr. Ellen Kursovich Vice-president of engineering of this tech Your Excellency Ladies and gentlemen for your invitation here I would like to give a short example of the role of the ICT in disaster response and preparedness through the project called emergency.elu emergency.elu is the project with the scope to establish the broadband connectivity in very early hours after the disaster strikes today emergency.elu is offered as a free public good by the Luxembourg government and other organizations around the world it's a worldwide system available as a 24x7 to be deployed in any part of the world at any point in time so it all actually started in January 2010 as already mentioned one of the most devastating disasters in the recent past several hundred supplies are taken and it also was one of the biggest response of the humanitarian communities at that time so far however that also created a problem of coordination in the field and one of the teams that was sent to the ICT at that point in time was also Luxembourg search and rescue team which ended up actually being on the site very early but not being able to support and help in this situation because actually no communication and no coordination in the field for the very few hours first hours or first days of disaster so they came back basically to Luxembourg and like Luxembourg is one of the major donors in terms of GDP donation per capita basically there must be something that they can do to actually save the lives of these early hours of disaster and the most lives actually can be saved so we see it as a company private company as yes and two other companies high tech and Luxembourg ambulance with the Luxembourg government and see actually what we can do to actually provide broadband connectivity in the early hours of disaster something that can be predictable repeatable and sustainable something that you can actually rely on in the disasters to come it very soon became obvious that technology definitely helps there are definitely technology solutions that we can propose there especially from the as a start-up operator self-connectivity as mentioned earlier is the technology of choice in the case of disaster but very soon became obvious that technology is not the only one that we need actually to look at the holistic pictures holistic picture of handling disaster communication in such a distressed situation that also requires basically logistics, requires the establishment and availability of the resources satellite capacity equipment in the field availability of the people who actually train to operate equipment not only communication but also the IT applications that will help people to report back and organize the help to come in the next days as a result of that we also reach out to other partners and especially I have to say that we find an extremely good cooperation partnership with WFP that's the program as the leader of the emergency telecom cluster which we set together and actually define what emergency hotel is going to be as a result after the almost a year of work we came up with a system that can be deployed at any point in time in the world it's available 24x7 relatively is a little bit transportable as an LIN basically compatible luggage and it's logistically organized the way that it's pre-position around the world in the major humanitarian hubs as well as the people are trained at multiple levels at the UN level at the civil protection level that can actually go and take this equipment and deploy within the world so the system is actually developed as a private public partnership between last month government and three public companies which I have to stress out is actually a model that I think works very well in the situations like disaster response because it takes both technology and the resources as well as private sector to provide technology and public sector to provide connectivity or necessary means to actually intervene in the other countries response capabilities here I would say if I can conclude this it's not all about technology it's all about the people it's about being prepared, being logistically ready being able to provide a sustainable and repeatable solution that can be relied on for the years to come Emergency Hotel Blue is actually first time deployed 10th of January 2012 in South Sudan and since then has been actually deployed as a first system of response in any single disaster you've heard over the last 3-4 years basically being Philippines being Nepal about the emergency Emergency Hotel Blue has been been deployed. Now of course the next challenge here is sustainability and how you make this system sustainable because due to the number of resources being blocked in order to wait for the emergency it makes sense of course to bundle such a project with the development projects and make sure that the resources are used in the time there is no emergency for development activities and such we embarked also on the project to actually use and managed to got a new network in the time of no disaster for the eHealth system and support developing countries in enhancing healthy infrastructure for the development activities. Thank you Thank you Alan and I look forward to actually having a discussion on how to actually use it in the Pacific but my next speaker is Mr. Timothy Allen president of the international telecommunications union I mean in the Pacific and I'm sure in most of the developing countries radio is still one of the key tools about educating about warning people about informing them about disasters so with that Mr. Timothy Allen Thank you very much let me add my welcome and my thanks to the government of the state of Kuwait and the international telecommunications union for organizing this conference it's very important and it's good to see that we have so much interest in it I represent the international amateur radio union and we represent the interests of the amateur radio services at the international and regional level and we're made up of about 160 member societies around the world and one of which I'm very proud to say is the Kuwait Amateur Radio Society who is very active not only in this country but in the region and it's very supportive of our efforts I was lucky enough to be a speaker at the first conference back in 2007 and I was asked then what are the benefits of the amateur radio services in emergency communications and I'll repeat them here because they're as true today as they were several years ago even with the advances in other communications tools that are available to the public and there's three points the first is amateur radio operators are on the ground if they're not close to the site of a disaster they might even be in it they're there, they're ready to go so in the first critical 24 to 48 hours you have people on the ground ready to assist second they own their own equipment they don't rely on commercial networks if a cellular service goes down we can assist by using HF or VHF or UHF communications on a period of period basis we don't rely on commercial services and the third is knowledge I like to say you know I'm not an engineer I don't work in the communications field but I'm an amateur radio operator and I know enough to be able to in a time of crisis to put my radio on the air by using alternate power sources and building a very simple wire antenna so you have these skilled people on the ground they know what to do, they know what bands and frequencies to use to be able to assist in times of disaster now there are issues which face all amateur radio operators and I'll highlight them here because I think it's something that all countries can work on in improving they are three of them as well first is the tax on equipment amateur radio operators buy their own equipment and in some countries it's very heavily taxed and in our view anything you can do to relieve tax on amateur radio equipment is certainly to our benefit secondly there are licensing restrictions in some countries some countries have very limited ability to actually get their exams and allow people to get their individual amateur radio licenses anything that can be done to streamline the ability of individuals to help out and become active in the amateur radio services would be very helpful and third is the support structures amateurs use radio and whether it's on HF or VHF they need to use towers and other support structures to put up their antennas often in an urban environment and again in some countries there are restrictions on the ability of amateurs to put up support structures so anything that can be done to allow amateur radio operators to put up effective communications facilities for HF and VHF would be of assistance the amateur radio services is very proud to be able to work with a number of entities and the ITU in dealing with emergency communications we've been around for 100 years and we're going to continue to be around for the next 100 there are a number of new technologies which amateurs have developed which are very helpful in emergency communications so my message to you is don't forget the amateur radio services they're a great asset to many of you, many of the countries and many of the organizations in the times of crisis thank you thank you very much and thank you that brings to a close the first part of our panel discussion this afternoon and with that I would like to open the floor if you have any questions please raise your name plates and limit your question to at most one minute so if you're addressing a specific panelist please let us know if not then I'll just open it up for the panel to respond this minister we're trying to find a microphone while we're waiting maybe we can take another question while we get the microphone is there another question we can address while we're sorting out this communication disaster hello, I was saying I'm one of the people who had forgotten about amateur radios and I don't think I'm the only one could there be, as we search coming from the context of developing countries we search for very easy effective methods of communication during disasters could there be a reason why there has been a law on amateur radios in terms of their knowledge that they are there thank you minister amateur radio is still very very useful and we do what we can to encourage individuals to obtain the qualifications necessary to have the license and to be able to assist in emergency communications but there are challenges that we face and one of them are some issues on trying to get individuals licensed and whatever can be done to streamline the licensing process in some countries in some regions they have common examinations for example and many people know in 2003 the Morse Code requirement sees to be a requirement for amateur radio operators so there are steps being taken to try and license more amateurs to assist in emergency communications does that answer your question thank you questions I have to say I am very happy that still a number of you are still here after an hour especially after lunch and I forgot to mention that lunch that you hosted was very nice and it was very unfortunate for me that I actually have to be here as a moderator again so again the floor is open for any questions to any of the panelists while we are waiting for questions if any member of the panelists want to add some short intervention yes I just wanted to add actually to the amateur radio Timothy that we have technologies which developed hybrid technologies earlier and we have a solution where we actually take a VHF and a UHF radio and we actually then convert that into L-band frequencies so we have a little converter size of a typical power supply you have for a laptop and that converts the signal from VHF to L-band and with a cup size antenna you can actually go to the satellite and connect to another radio amateur person who could be very far away not in the local community because amateur radio is restricted to the coverage with VHF or whatever other alternative frequencies you have local based frequencies and so on so you can actually use complemented with a satellite converter and go long range through an L-band satellite to depend upon the footprint of course within the region as such so you can broaden the coverage there is a wide area coverage we have, as I said earlier we have narrow beams regional beams and global beams so if you happen to have an amateur radio which wants to broaden his coverage footprint if you like using a satellite technology then there are hybrid solutions that are available that's an example, a perfect example of how amateurs can work with many people in this room to provide effective communications in the first immediate hours after a disaster and I should add as a plug amateurs are very good at developing new technologies Joe Taylor who is a noble laureate and also an amateur develops a very good weak signal propagation software which he makes freely available and that allows communications of very low sub one watt power levels on HF and VHF frequency so again, an example of how people amateurs can cooperate with commercial services thank you the interest of time I'll take at most two more questions my question for the Mr. Mori from Japan we noticed the form satellite emerges after a little tsunami that some urban area nearly demolished I would like to know the role of Joe's special data remote sensing GIS and ICT especially after a disaster thank you of course we endeavored to make every usage of every ICT tools and for the first week or two weeks satellite was very useful and amateur radio was also very useful and as I explained within two or three weeks automobile companies and ICT companies and our government made the best effort to create the atmosphere where mobile phones or other methods can be used and we really realized 3S policies are very important seamless, secure and smart seamless aims at creating seamless conditions in terms of time and space and among different institutions and secure means enhancing resilience of communication methods infrastructure and smart means utilizing cutting edge ICT technologies yes we did those kind of things if I can just say in a smaller very small scale level small islands or states like Tonga after the category 5 cyclone in Tonga in 2014 one of the tools that we use is remote sensing whereby we actually take an image straight after the cyclone and we use that to actually assess the damage because you have a before and after image so that was very helpful in our case to actually assess the damages of that particular cycle so I guess that to some extent if a small island state can be some of your tools in terms of damage assessments yes yes thank you Mr. Chief working for a program you who use this every day would like to add that again preparedness is very important because okay you can do the damage assessment with one of the main aspect of using remote sensing but you need to be equipped you need to know where to use the image or at least who can provide you with the analysis with the analysis and also you can go deeper into the analysis if you know okay this building has been destroyed but is this building a private house a hospital a school it changes the the total is the critical length of the information and how you are going to react to this information and how you are going to use it so preparing baseline data upstream is very important so when the crisis occurs you can be very much more reactive so in terms of applications you have damage assessments but you have also extent of the damage depending also on what it is access roads how you access estimation first of people affected then how you reach them and then longer these are very first information you seek with these tools given the fact that you can get them because sometimes it's cloudy you cannot and so on so you have different limitations as well and then damage assessment and monitoring the recovery and you have many different types of applications you can use for with these tools thank you very much thank you the GIS systems do you have an instantaneous system that give you a live information about what's going on on the ground well you can get first insight within a day and so it's not like satellite are taking pictures when they are rotating in orbit so they are not streaming videos some starts to do but the resolution is low but in any way it will pass over and so you get a snapshot at a specific time and a specific place so you cannot monitor in a sense that you have you see what's going on really but with the multiplication of the source and the different types of satellite sensors can be a radar can be optical so combining again all this source of information and having being prepared upstream makes you able to provide very good insights on situational awareness to decision makers really what matters so it's not live but you can provide you with quite good understanding of what's happened Excellencies, Ministers Ladies and gentlemen because of time constraint and due consideration to interpreters I would like to close that part of the session and I'd like to join me in actually talking our panelists for their very interesting, diverse views especially on different stakeholders on addressing disasters we're touching and saving lives so please