 Welcome to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2022 here in Bucharest in Romania where I've got the great pleasure of being joining the studio today Mr. Chaserblee who is the director of the Telecommunications Standardization Bureau for ITU. Mr Lee welcome to the studio. Yes thank you very much it's a great opportunity to interview you. It's a pleasure to see you in here. Now these are your last few months as the Telecommunications Standardization Bureau director. You've had a long and successful term so I think you can be very much proud of what you've managed to achieve. I wanted to ask you what changes have you seen in telecommunications and technology in the standardization sector and how have the ITU's priorities changed over the last few years? Yeah it's really the time flow is really fast it's already at the end of my term now. Let me look at this with my experience the change of this telecommunications. Let me start with this telecom telecom operators they are very struggle to deploy of this 5G successfully. Still very unfortunately the key application is not yet clear enough so they are very struggle in terms of this business. While they are struggling of this 5G they are looking for their business maintaining their business based on the data and cloud. This is a sum of trend and that definitely influence of our technical standard development as well because many technologies now coming to support digital transformation because cloud data is an essential part to support of digital transformation. So we standard domains we have many verticals to join with us specifically ITU. That was really amazing joining last several years because almost every year we received several new communities like eSports community can you imagine eSports community is our ITU sector member I was very very pleased so that kind of things is a big change so I think overall ITU we have to take into account how this digital transformation is needed. I choose support how we can engage of this digital transformation that will be what I foresee during my eight years. We not only enhanced our digital transformation in the in the world but also in the Union itself in terms of the events that you have been leading. I think AI for good summit for example perhaps you could just tell us a little bit about its evolution as well. Yeah this is one of my proud achievements let me say AI just a return back of this around six or seven years ago when you talk about AI always talking about the negative side AI still the jobs AI robot the people so many things the negative side was happening but in ITU we wish to look at the AI as a technology we wish to look at the positive side that is our team's effort we conclude as a UN agency of ICT we conclude AI should be good for such to support of the sustainable development goals that's we start AI for good five years ago and our theme was quite right and many we are successfully involved with so many experts very wonderful speakers wonderful project programs including Nobel laureates and even young professionals we successfully mobilized them and during the five years we focus how to have some defining the action items rather than talk show so we called show enter so we try to crystallize even small piece but with this small piece enough to mobilize of this anyone's as our theme was we invite we collect actually collect someone's who has a problems difficulties and then we invite some of us to solve the problems that is AI for good platforms so I'm very very proud and now we reach really good phase and AI for good is now the most most well-known AI platform in the world and it's not just an event that happens one week it's something that's happening now all year round yes now it's all year round so since the pandemic we are all year round many of cases use of this virtual mode there's another way to reach out to the communities rather than centralizing based on Juniba but we reach out to the each community each country that was very well accepted by the way next year since the pandemic we didn't organize the in-person event but next year we plan of this two days in person event in juniba but while we are continue as always online excellent that's great and it's nice to see people face to face as well looking back over your years first as a delegate then as an ITU elected official we've talked about AI for good but what are some of the other achievements that you have been most proud of yeah as a delegate I devoted my delegation time around 27 years since 1987 there are many many technical development as we have a big change our technical development most of this of my memory is I challenged how to change our legacy telephone networks to all IP based called next generation networks NGN and also on top of this engine how to support of a TV streaming service called IPTV both two I was the leader of this both two groups and then this becoming as a frameworks of this broadband connectivity networks broadband uh society now so this is one of my most proud achievement as a delegation and as an elected officer last eight years one of my even AI for good is one of my achievement but in overall I'm very pleased ITUT becoming more relevant standard organization in the world the many organizations even other standard like ISIC they were respect of this ITUT recommendation and also other competing let me say competing other standard organizations they also enjoy to refer ITUT recommendations so this is what I very proud with that ITUT is now going forward to support digital transformation even every year I received more than 100 so last two years I received more than 200 new industry members as ITU members so I'm very very proud this is one of a clear evidence how I so my effort to reach of this how ITUT more relevant to the world I'd also like to ask you this is probably going to be one of your last major interviews in your current role I'm sure you'll be involved in one way or another and we will see you again but I wanted to ask you what's your current message at the moment to ITU and and to all its stakeholders yeah ITUT is a UN special agency for ICT so ITUT to my observation is technology based organization so we have to all ITU staff and the ITU members follow or at least maintain of this our technical understanding our understanding our talk our language of this technology should be professional so I'm really asked this ITU should be maintain our technical knowledge based on this technical knowledge we have to engage to considering the business aspect market aspect even political aspect without clear understanding of technology technical sense the debating of this policy should be very difficult I think is a difficulty result that is one thing at the international organizations as other standard organizations now international organization develop one standard to fit everybody apply to all the world that's not going to happen this time is gone maybe you know next few decades this kind will be bad but for the moment how we can develop our standard to meet firstly meet of these communities requirements this is the most important so if we challenge of this then each communities like digital divide or providing the connectivity we can firstly we can expedite of this our objective so this is our message international organization we need very carefully to look at how we are really meet of this members those communities required that is my message and you said at the beginning time flies that it's gone very quickly indeed I know as I say you've been involved with O2U for many years out of everything that you've been doing a certain over the last eight years let's say is there anything that you wish you could have sped up a little bit that could have gone a little bit quicker that could have evolved a little bit more is there anything that you think that I would really like to see progress in the coming years let me say digital transformation is now common language common objective that is nice but digital transformation is technology and the process that is not our objective our objective should be how we can make people smart how we can make a community sustainable so next two years next several years I think it's all our effort is more address how to make a world smart and sustainable digital transformation is a tool the process so now from now I already started to investigate how I can my contribution to continue smart sustainable digital transformation which I learned of this ITO and I have many communities many experts so I wish to working together with all those colleagues in this regard of this how we can deliver this proper message proper result for a smarter system with digital transformation well we wish the best for the next few months and of course your next career steps ahead and look forward to catching up with you again very soon chaser b thank you very much indeed yeah thank you very much as a last moment I want to take this opportunity I want to thank to my colleagues at tsp colleagues especially it was my great great pleasure to work with they are the best best best staff in ito I was very lucky also absolutely with the other colleagues helping of this ito tsp operation thank you very much wonderful I'm sure they'll appreciate that thank you thank you