 It's far too quiet in here. If you don't clap, I will not start. Thank you. Thank you girls. Thank you. Excellency is Excellency minister. Excellency commissioners. Excellency ambassadors or VIPs here. You've made our day. It is really, really a pleasure for us as ITU to welcome first of all the girls Thank you for coming and to welcome all of you. Excellency is here to celebrate Girls in ICT 11,100. That's number of events celebrating Girls in ICT that we've had all over the world since 2010. 171 countries is the number of countries that have participated. And on this day probably more will be participating in celebrating in their own countries. If you visit our website you'll see who is doing what. And so far almost 400,000 girls have participated in these events. But why is it important? Why is it important to celebrate Girls in ICT day? Celebrating Girls in ICT inspires you, young girls. You hear the stories of those that have succeeded and you know that you can succeed through ICT. You know that ICT is as much for you as it is for everybody else. We hope that in the next 10 years because there will be so many, so many jobs, it is estimated that 2 million jobs will be unfilled in this ICT field. And that actually is when you'll be ready for a job or you'll be ready to start your businesses. So you better be ready. Every job that is on the market right now, one way or the other it has an ICT component. So it's something that you really can't ignore and it's something that becomes easier if you start now, if you start at your age. It is something that becomes now part of you and any job that you take in future will be that much easier. In fact it will be easier to get that job to start that business because 9 out of 10 jobs right now involve some sort of ICT. I want to thank you girls because being here today that is the first step to listen to others that have been through the same process. To learn, I know that you've spent since 7 o'clock. You've spent it in workshops, learning various things, learning how to use social media, learning how to use the internet in general. I also want to thank you because you are joining a global movement. As I said all over the world today we are celebrating and girls like you are going to places like this to listen to people like us and to listen to other young people as well about their journey through ICT. As regional director for Africa it's my job to make sure that this message gets through to you, to make sure that my office, ITU office facilitates you. To make sure that you can get the education, you can get the training, you can get the openings that you need. I would like to mention one of the things, one of the most amazing things that we are doing at the regional office. We have started an initiative in partnership with UN Women and with African Union. This initiative we call African Girls Can Code. African Girls Can Code as the title says it is an initiative that gets young girls like you to learn how to code, why code. Coding is the basis for everything. It is the easiest way to get into the field because how many of you have a mobile phone, have a smartphone? How many? There you go. It's great almost each one of you has a smartphone and with that smartphone you can actually code and create an application. Whether it is just a fun application, whether it is an application to help your community or whether it is an application for business. But that you can actually do once you learn how to code, you can actually do that on your mobile phone. We are celebrating with a number of girls that are not from here, are not Ethiopian. The majority of them are from Tanzania. Where are you Tanzanian girls? Could you please stand and be recognized? Let's recognize them. I know that during the sessions that you've had this morning they've shared what they've been able to do. Please sit. They've been sharing what they've been able to do through coding and I really want to commend the country of Tanzania, the regulatory office and also the universal service authority that has made it possible for this movement to catch fire in Tanzania. Through this initiative, the African Girls Can Code initiative, which started last year, the first coding camp that we heard had 85 girls from 34 countries from this continent. Those girls came here with no knowledge or little knowledge about ICT. Guess what? By the time the two weeks ended and they were going home, some of them could actually code robotic work. You know what robotics are? To make those machines move and do things. They could do that. Some of them could code, could connect different devices to one another, what we call Internet of Things. Some of them could write, could code games, the games you find on the Internet. They could do their own games. Some of them in fashion design, they were able to design, to code, design, make the dresses and actually model on our own New York artwork. They were able to model what they made. You should have seen those who were here last August so what they were able to do. And to me, Vasachi, Ralph Lauren, Christian, they have nothing on these girls. The second bootcamp as we speak, the second bootcamp of the African Girls Can Code is taking place as we speak in Pretoria, South Africa. Actually, later tonight, I'll be leaving to join them to celebrate their work and to close that workshop. And there are more workshops that will be taking place here. So it is my hope that you girls seated there will be able to participate. I cannot continue without recognizing the Embassy of Denmark that made it financially possible for us to start this project. I really, really appreciate and I would actually like to give them a clap. Ladies and gentlemen, you young ladies, I'm very, very proud of the work that my office, the ITU Regional Office for Africa is doing. And I'm very proud of the staff that I have who are selfless in everything that they do, but particularly in bridging the gender digital gap. I count on my team every day. Unfortunately on March 10th, I lost two of our staff in the Ethiopian Airlines accident. Those were Marcelino Rasultayop and Meganet Abebe as you see on the screen. They were not only dynamic colleagues, but they were friends. I have a small office and we see each other every day and we share coffee and it was a great loss to us. They were working very hard to make this event happen. Since the beginning of the year, they were working on organizing Girls in ICT Day. Marcelino was my senior advisor and my right hand man and a very, very wise man who was known all over the continent. We celebrate his life. Let me recognize Mrs. Marcelino who is actually here with us. Anabela Tayop is right there and I would like to welcome her as well. Meganet Abebe who worked as Marcelino's admin assistant. She was an incredible young lady. She had two passions that I know of. One was her kids. She had two young kids. Now me and Michael, six and three respectively. And her other passion was you, the Girls in ICT. She was our key passer in organizing this event. And when the time came to start organizing, she saw nothing else. As a matter of fact, this Girls in ICT Day, the 25th of April would have been Meganet's 34th birthday. We celebrate her life. We celebrate the work that she was able to do with us and with you and the fact that you are here. We celebrate that fact that she had a hand in that. One important thing that she had a hand in because she wanted this event to be successful was in identifying who can make the event successful, who will be able to inspire you, who will be able to be your role models. And therefore, she took the initiative and identified one Ethiopian African singer. Hey girls, BTG is in the house. We look forward to the celebration. We look forward to releasing you and have more fun with coding in there with ICT. But we also hope that everybody will have a successful celebration of Girls in ICT. Happy Girls in ICT Day.