 We're here at the ITU's studio in Geneva, and I'm very pleased to be joined by Mr. Brahim Asano, who is director of BDT, the ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau. And we're going to be discussing a new initiative under his leadership, which is entitled the Smart Sustainable Development Model, or SSDM. Mr. Asano, thank you very much indeed for being with us today. What is the Smart Sustainable Development Model, and why is it important? Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. The Smart Sustainable Development Model is actually a link between the emergency telecommunication and sustainable development. First, about the emergency telecommunication and natural disasters. As you know, from our statistics, in 2011-2012, more than 30,000 people lost their lives in the natural disaster. And we're talking about more than 380 billion lost. And the number of the natural disaster, the average in 2011-2012, is 384. Which means that we're having an average of one natural disaster per day. So the question for us now is no longer whether there will be a natural disaster. The question is where and when, which means that it's becoming part, something that is happening to you in average every day is part of your life. And you have to take it very seriously. This is why actually I'm really committed to that. And this natural disaster almost all the time happened in the most vulnerable and the most poor part of the countries. So then, this initiative aimed at linking actually the disaster relief and disaster prevention with sustainable development. In the way that we try to link, when there is no disaster, there's equipment that should have been used to make prevention and disaster rescue can be used also to make business. So this is a link we're trying to make here to make sure that we link the development of people with the natural disaster relief through emergency telecommunication. And what role do ICTs and telecommunications play in disaster risk reduction and disaster management? You know, when natural disaster strikes, the first thing you need is communication. I personally visited one of the Pacific Island and the minister told me one time they have an earthquake and it took them one week to know what was happening in the other island, apart from the main island, to know what was happening in the other island. So this is where communication has become very important. And when natural disaster strikes, first you need to know what happened and secondly, how to organize the rescue. So if you don't have the communication, it's just impossible to do any work. And in the worst case, people are not communicating and you can have a total mess in organizing the rescue. At the time, we really need to save lives. It is proven that the first 72 hours are the most critical in saving lives. If you miss the communication at this time, you miss opportunity to save lives. Very, very important indeed. Finally, can I ask you, the first advisory board meeting for this initiative is meeting in October. What are your expectations for this? You know, as a director of telecommunications development bureau, my objective and my work and my mandate is to be a facilitator, to create a platform for people working together. So I'm bringing all those people who are working, the multi-stakeholder, that's working in a disaster, humanitarian work and the technology, of course. I'm bringing all those people for us to sit down together and see how we can, how we can together push this agenda to link the emergency telecommunication with the sustainable development. So people can have, go for the development activities with equipment and when disaster strikes. We are the same people who have been trained, of course, who can be the first person to give the, I would say, indispensable communication at the first hour when the disaster strikes. We are the same also. We are going to work to make sure that ICT are used for the disaster prevention. Well, I wish you the very best with this initiative and thank you very much indeed for being with us today. Thank you very much. I'm a great pleasure. I'm very excited about this initiative. I'm very happy that I've got a very good response from very high people who are coming to join me and really this is a way, as a director of BGT, I should be working to bring all the stakeholders so together we can make the difference. I'm very excited and this is what I call my passion for compassion.