 Dear friends, my name is Hamadun Ture, I'm the Secretary-General of ITU, the International Telecommunication Union, the Specialized Agency of the United Nations for Information and Communication Technologies, or ICTs. You join me today in our plenary room at the heart of our headquarters in Geneva, the European Center for United Nations and other international agencies. This is where our membership of 193 member states and more than 700 sector members, which are mostly private sector companies, discuss issues related to the international ICT ecosystem. At ITU, we are very proud to be involved in an initiative which uses innovative technology to connect people so that they can collaborate on vital public policy to make a difference to the world we live in. It's excellent to see public institutions continuing to experiment with such tools as these will surely help us create a world where citizens are more engaged in the decisions that affect them. The United Nations is a forum for member states to deliberate on issues of international importance. If you really wish to change perceptions, bring about change, or encourage action on a certain issue, you need to be able to express your views and gather public support so that relevant governing bodies can come, take informed and representative decisions. By using an open and inclusive tools like crowdsourcing, I believe that governments and the United Nations system will be better equipped to guide and inform our work. I urge you to be honest and outspoken, yet practical in your ideas on the platform. Even if you are not individually recognized in the formal outcomes, your opinion will have helped sway those outcomes and decisions in a positive direction. I wish you good luck and happy crowdsourcing.