 Welcome to ITU Telecom World 2019 in Budapest, Hungary. We're very pleased to be joining the studio today by Kierke Kanna, who is the Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technologies for South Africa. Welcome to the studio, Pinky. Thank you, Max, and thank you to the viewers. I'd like to start off by talking to you a little bit about meaningful connectivity. What does it mean to you? Well, to us, when we talk about meaningful connectivity, especially in the South African context, we are a predominantly rural country. And it will be very important for every village and every town to be connected. Universal access to services like broadband is primary to us. The same way that we treat access to water and electricity, because we believe once people are connected and there's access to internet, it improves even the performance of children at school. Because currently, as we speak, our president has committed to distribute 14 million tablets over the next three years. But those will be meaningless if our schools are not connected. So to us, meaningful connectivity will also mean when we have schools connected, when we have hospitals and clinics connected. What are South Africa's key initiatives in accelerating connectivity and making it meaningful? I mean, obviously, the tablets is a great initiative, but let's talk about other things that are happening. Look, currently, as we speak, the 4IR is here with us, and one of the things that the president said was that we need to look at how we respond to the fourth industrial revolution in the South African context. And by so doing, he put together a commission, the industry players, the academia, civil society, labour and everybody, and he said, look at the pillars of the economy of South Africa. Let's see how best we respond in terms of technology in using the pillars of our economy. But it will be important that we skill our people. There's digital skills for our people, but there's also access to these services for our people. Now, one of the things that we also did, you know, the cost to communicate is one of the biggest issues in South Africa, and the competition commission also came into it to say, how do we reduce the cost to communicate? Because even for young people to use, to access education and stream into education programs, they need data. So part of it is to say, let's zero rate some of these things, see if it's possible to zero rate streaming of education, zero rate anything that has to do with health, zero rate anything that speaks to government services so that it doesn't become costly. So it's some of the initiatives that government is embarking on. And of course we are using our regulator, we are also using the competition commission to look into some of these things, to bring the costs to communicate down, including the gadgets, because they too are very expensive. I'm going to put you on the spot for a second. I wanted to ask you, what single factor policy, strategy or technology do you think has got the, or will have the greatest, the biggest impact in the rollout of digital transformation? The single factor, technology. Technology, policy or strategy do you think, which of those do you think is going to be the most important in terms of digital transformation? Look, one of the things we are doing in South Africa, around the technology space is to bring everybody, stakeholders and ITU is also playing a very important role of doing what we call, what is that thing? Collaboration, co-creation. That's where we have the private sector, the civil society and everybody who are saying, come let's look at the legislative framework and say, what are the impediments? Because some of the legislations that we have, it's 2013, 2014 and now we didn't anticipate the rapid technological advancement that we are confronted with. How do we make sure that we are agile as government to make the legislative framework more responsive so that whoever wants to come and play and participate in investing in South Africa has a framework that is more receiving, but also doesn't make us as South Africa to be found wanting in some of the things. So that's why we say ITU, space, assist us to standardize, to harmonize because we look at codes of good practice amongst ourselves but we also have our own AU space where ministers come together and then share codes of good practices amongst themselves to say, how then do we use the regulatory framework? Because multinationals who are operating across the world are there even in South Africa so they shouldn't find disparities in terms of legislation and how do we harmonize and standardize some of those things? Let me ask you if I may, as a woman in the heart of communications and information technology how should one best close the digital gender gap? You know I said it yesterday, I mean if you were there during the opening ceremony we were about three women in front amongst a boys' club and I think it's one of the things that are the challenge but I think one of the things that you are doing in South Africa which we have done very well before, the construction industry was also male dominated we had a deliberate program to bring in women in construction the mining industry was the same, we had a deliberate program to bring in women in the industry now it's ICT, we say not only ICT but also telcos, we're taking them together I'm a patron as the Deputy Minister of the Forum of Women in ICT in South Africa we're going to have deliberate programs and network of women around there and we're also going to use the spectrum process to say women must not be left behind in this opportunity but also in the ICT having learned lessons on the World Radio Conference we had the ATU version of ourselves in South Africa where the SG was saying, of Africa was saying in all the forums that we are going to sit every member state must at least bring one woman so until we give women opportunities, expose them, invite them, make them to have interest in this thing we will not go anywhere and by the way in South Africa women constitute a bigger margin we are above 50% population so if you develop technology without talking to us it may not be responsive to our needs so nothing about us without us so we have to find a way of bringing women into the fold I couldn't agree more as hosts last year and long-standing participants what's the value for you of ITU Telecom World? Look, the ITU Telecom World has done one wonderful thing and that's why I like this courage that they have done when they were doing a legacy project for us they are going to do data What do you call that? The Center for Digital Transformation Center for Digital Transformation it's one of the things that they... it's a legacy project and in that center that's where they bring innovation that's where they also bring financing and they bring investments through the multinationals or all the players in the ICT sector they are bringing civil society and everybody to say look, we have to respond to the opportunity that technology brings in South Africa how do we collaborate? how do we cooperate? and you as government create an enabling environment one in terms of legislation two in terms of incentives including the tax something like tax... what do you call this? tax breaks for our people so that at least more investors can come into South Africa but also move SMEs to another level by also bringing finance because we have realized that they bring an idea and then there's no funding and then that idea end up dying so we need to have the whole value chain of that thing from the idea to putting together financing incubating making you to run on your own and then at the end making money so that you don't have that that SME dying in between the idea and the actual realization of the vision Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technologies for South Africa thank you very much for joining us in the studio and hopefully we'll catch up with you again at some stage in the very near future thank you we'll see each other next year in Vietnam fantastic look forward to it thank you