 Welcome to the World Radio Communication Conference 2023, WRC 23 being held in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I'm pleased to be joining the studio this morning by Soraya Contreras, who is spectrum engineer, as well as being an expert on satellite matters for OFCOM in Switzerland. Soraya, welcome to the studio. Thank you very much. Now, let me start off by asking you about the World Radio Communication Conference. Why is it an important event? Why are you attending this? As you mentioned, I work for the regulator, the National Authority in Switzerland. So, of course, it's important for us that this conference makes relevant modifications to the radio regulations in order to provide more opportunities to those looking forward, providing new services while protecting those that are already in the environment. Now, what are some of the challenges and opportunities in terms of radio communications in Switzerland? Well, on top of what you mentioned, I am also CEPT coordinator for one agenda item, which is 116, which is about the stations in motions in the K-Bahn for operating with non-geostationary systems. So, we are very implicated and very active in the, not only ITU, but also a CEPT level. So, we have to make sure that being a small country in the middle of Europe, with a number of neighbors that we are able to operate and implement radio communication services consistent with our neighbors and important for our population. Now, traditionally, WRC is actually being held in Geneva, in Switzerland, actually, where ITU's headquarters are. So, you've come a fair distance to be here. I wanted to find out from you what do you hope will be some of the outcomes from this conference? Well, there are many challenges. I mean, in terms of terrestrial service, there are not a lot of space, regulatory, there are a number of discussions. For us, what is really important is to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to operate, that as a regulator, we don't favor more one system or another one service or another. So, for us, the most important is really to ensure future services, but also protecting all the assets that are there, especially in a space for many years, but also Switzerland being quite reliable on terrestrial services, for us, is a very important challenge also to protect them and to provide new opportunities to new incumbents and that's valid for all kind of services. I should add also that Switzerland is very committed also in the framework of ISA projects, so we support regularly also all the science services and we are very active on that sense. Now, in principle, I mean, the conversations that are being had here, there's a lot of people learning from each other, I think as well, because there's a lot of member states here all gathered together. Just wanted to find out what are your impressions of this meeting and in terms of exchange of information, exchange of learnings, et cetera, apart from the decisions that are being made here with regards to regulatory regulations. You know, it has been a challenging cycle with the pandemics. We had a period in which we really felt the impact of not meeting each other, not being able to have these offline conversations as we call to find real solutions. On the phone, it was just so challenging. So being here, I consider we can be happy to have all the faults around to try to better understand us, to come out with solutions that are really workable for everyone. And I know that you were interviewed a little while ago with regards to gender participation here at conferences and particularly at WRC, there's been a big push to achieve great agenda parity for this and there was a gender resolution passed at the Radio Communication Assembly just prior to this conference here. I wanted to ask you about your opinion on this and how you think this is progressing. So yes, of course, we have in CPT a big co-coordination team. Actually, our work in CPT is a splitting project team. So in every project team, we have a co-coordinator and we have actually official sessions on network of women in CPT in which we have made around 40 different sessions around all during the cycle. And I am part of that co-coordination team in the project team B for the space services. So we were very active, but it was so important work that was made in collaboration. The whole team led by Byamela, but also with the other regions because we often invited the co-coordinators from other regions to our sessions. And I think that the gender resolution was the big achievement of all this coordinated work in the whole six regional organizations. So you feel that there are more women participating in this event than before? We were checking out the statistics a little bit yesterday in the event organized by ITUR. There is an increase, a sensitive increase. Of course, it's not what is ideally, but we noticed that if we compare it over the last 20 years and we are achieving in these days, it's very positive. And we believe that the tool of having the gender resolution will facilitate to make it more official and to have these exchanges in a more official framework which really will encourage administrations to domestically take measures, whatever they can, to increase the participation of women in the radio communication sector. So fair to say, slow progress, but moving in the right direction. I think so. I want to sit in this way. Okay, great. Well, Soraya Contreras, thank you so much for joining us in the studio. It's been a pleasure listening to your insights with regards to radio communications and also your views on the conference itself. And hopefully we'll catch up with you again in the not too distant future. Thank you very much for the invitation. Thank you. And if you've enjoyed this interview, which I'm sure you will have, then please check out our other interviews on our YouTube channel, as well as our podcasts on our podcast channel, SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your podcast from. And for further information, visit our website at www.itu.int. Thanks for tuning in.