 Welcome to the World Summit on the Information Society 2017. Here in Geneva, Switzerland, I am delighted to be joined by Yaroslav Ponder, ITU's Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor and Chief Event Organiser. So this year's summit is the second since the Sustainable Development Goals were set by the UN in 2015. Can you tell us about the progress that WISIS has accomplished to align itself with these World Summit on the Information Society is the unique UN process of the multi-stakeholder character which provides the platform for the governments, civil society, private sector, academia, technical community, the platform and to discuss in this setup the important developments related to the ICTs for SDGs and in fact in 2015 the United Nations General Assembly reviewed and the outcomes of the WISIS from 2005 asking for the aligning the WSIS process with the SDG process. This means that since this year and since 2015 we are working hand in hand with all UN agencies, all the family and to ensure that our guiding tool, WISIS SDG matrix, becomes the only reference point for the UN system and that our work is programmed accordingly and that we are contributing to the one unique goal, the Sustainable Development Goals. On the annual basis we are meeting in Geneva as requested by the UN General Assembly at the WSIS Forum to exchange the best practices and to see how these practices can contribute to the development of the Information Society at the global scale. Also this year we start to observe a very positive development at the regional level and this is something what we are in fact looking for for some time that the implementation of the WISIS outcomes in relationship to the SDGs is also kicking off at the regional level and series of the regional meetings are taking place since this year in all order to connect the dots and connect the all stakeholders at the regional level to strengthen the implementation of the WSIS outcomes with the ultimate goal and to achieve the SDGs by 2030. You've used the word platform, it's very important isn't it, what can you tell us about WISIS as a platform for sharing best practices and ICT to enable the SDGs? The WISIS Forum evolved since 2005 when the WISIS Summit concluded on its objectives and the goals. We started very small with a small community but we arrived to the community of more than 300,000 ICT professionals from coming from the different sectors working hand in hand on the process provided guidance but more importantly working on the setting up the partnerships and to implement the WISIS outcomes in line with this what has been designed by the governments with the advice of the international organizations, private sector civil societies and other stakeholders and therefore we are very happy on the annual basis and to see the series of the innovations proposed by the stakeholders like this year we hold the first ever the hackathon which is addressing the challenges of the health. It's already known today that the next year we'll be working together with the FAO and the UN agencies in charge of the food and with the IEEE on the hackathon on the hack with the title hack against hunger. So you see we are doing the progress in the each of the domain and each of the fields where the UN can make the change. The one important strategy behind the WISIS process is to make sure that we are delivering as one and to the countries as the UN system and in line with the SDG process but still focusing on the ICT component as the technologies evolve and they are changing our life they're becoming useful more and more not only for playing and using during this per time but more and more we are seeing this applied in the real life in the agriculture in the health in the education and the other sectors. Therefore this year we are very happy to welcome at the WISIS forum so many representatives of the other sectors than the ICT sector. So the debate is not anymore how to produce ICTs to sell them but more the debates turns towards how to address the challenges of the global development through the ICT solutions. Therefore we are very proud of welcoming more than 2,400 ICT experts and the other representatives of the stakeholders and the sectors looking for the solutions and the partnerships. Well Jaroslav Ponda ITU's Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor thank you very much. Thank you very much.