 Welcome to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. We are very pleased to be joined in the studio today by Mr Karol Okonski, who is the Secretary of State for Poland. Mr Koonski, thank you for joining us in the studio. Thank you for having me here. It's good to see you again. Yeah, it's always actually appreciate the time I can take part in the ITU events. It's like something I would say extraordinary to gather in one place. So many people actually being responsible at the same time for the ICT topics, but also open to the discussions and just building relationships in the meantime, so I appreciate it. Now there's been a lot of attention being paid to harnessing the power of information and communication technologies, ICTs, as an enabler for good, for development, for the benefit of people, of communities, of nations. I wanted to find out what's your perspective on this. You're right. I think it is very important to see that with the proper use of ICT, you can really change, like, right, for good, for something systematically applied, the way that actually the society and especially in some areas that are actually underdeveloped, that you can actually take the ICT solutions and make the people just close those gaps that they might have in both the communications and also in the literacy, I would say, digital literacy that you can get people actually involved in some of the areas, either with the government or with the private sector, with ICT can be this right link that can allow people to participate in some of the activities. For example, one of the projects that we are very proud of in Poland is the project where she aims at connecting all public schools to high-speed broadband. And then you connect the schools, you say, okay, it's fine, but it's just also an enabler then for the whole society, for both the children, the teachers, you can actually also provide the content, the digital content, organized centrally or distributed of high quality that you can just pass through and use in those schools. And also, from the very beginning, you let the people understand the benefits but also some risks that are connected using the high technology because in the end, like you said, ICT is a big enabler, but at the same time, it has to be used wisely. Now, this is this planning potential conference. This is the first one since the world agreed to the sustainable development goals. I just wanted to find out, as ICTs, as enablers for these, and what's your perspective on that? And also, how is Poland contributing to that? Yes, well, I think here the important fact is that we involve, in anything, in any activities connected to ICT projects and ICT capabilities, we build them, consulting and taking into the discussion, bringing into discussion all stakeholders that are involved. And I think very important is that if you provide the new, taking, for example, the topic of artificial intelligence, something that actually is seen as a potential, one of the factors that can influence dramatically in a positive way, the fact that we can achieve the goals that we also, in terms of sustainable development. And then it's very, very important to make sure that when we develop a new legislation or a new standards, that from the very beginning, from the very start, address the needs of all the parties, all the stakeholders that are involved in the process. So, not that you actually provide a long, iterative process, but from the very start, you take into consideration the different point of views that we might have from different parties, different parts of society. And then it makes it much more effective, and actually I think by this way, by this multi-stakeholder approach, so also very much charged at the United Nations agencies, that in the end, the results can be actually achieved much faster because you don't experience the obstacles at the moment of implementation, but you're actually, at least, to a much, to a much extent, foresee any difficulties you might have, and we're just involved and incorporate some actions from the very beginning. Now, about half of the world's people are connected to the Internet, the other half is not. What is your country doing to get everyone connected? Yes, it's true that especially in countries that have some diverse terrain and some spots that are actually of diverse density of population, Poland is actually one of them. There are still areas that what we would call the white gaps on this communication penetration, telecommunication penetration map. What we are doing actually is to, first of all, to make sure that we have them marked, that we are aware that there are those areas. And then we actually, in Poland, we provide the special funds to actually subsidize the companies that actually develop, that do the telecommunication investments. Being sure that if there is no clear profit behind the investment, it will be very hard actually to persuade someone to close this gap and to provide the necessary connectivity. So by doing it in a focused way, that equates in different areas, you can actually also make sure that you invest money wisely of the public, of the government, and that in the end you step by step by providing the up-to-date map of your country, of mapping of the infrastructure, and just gradually will come up to the situation that actually every household in Poland and then in Europe have its connectivity. Absolutely great. And in terms of your message, your message to participants here at PPAT, perhaps you would like to, in a nutshell, diffuse it to our wider audience here on the IT YouTube channel. Yes, thank you. I think what is important here is to make sure that whenever we, talking with different kinds, whenever we want to regulate something, just to make sure that we came through the phases of self-regulation, because what we would like to avoid is to hamper any creativity or any free thought that people might have by actually from the start making very strict frames and guidelines for them. So we should do it when we see that it is necessary, but I would very much prefer the testing and experimenting first before actually implementing some hard laws, because in the end I think also at the level of ITU, combining both the expertise but also the creativity of different countries, we can come up with some solutions that will be actually self-regulatory, and then when we see that there is some special additional help needed from the government to protect, for example, the citizens, then of course we should do it, but not to overdo it from the very beginning. Karol Gonski, Secretary of State of Poland, thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much.