 Hello, everyone. It's a real pleasure to be able to join you for this first virtual IMS conference. Let me take a moment to congratulate the team at IEEE for bringing this amazing event together in very challenging times. My name is Doreen Bogdan-Martin, and I'm the Director of Telecommunications Development at the International Telecommunications Union, or ITU. For those of you who don't know us, ITU is the UN Agency for Digital Technologies. We're based in Geneva, Switzerland, and we've been at the heart of advances in communications for more than 150 years, from the earliest days of the telegraph to the invention of the telephone, communication satellites, mobile telephony, and most recently, the Internet and the World Wide Web. At the beginning of the year, when the IEEE team approached me to speak at this conference, we decided to focus my talk on the importance of connectivity to the world's nearly 8 billion people and the role of digital technologies in the efforts to meet the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. What an incredibly timely choice that turned out to be. Just a few weeks later, a storm began to gather on the global horizon in the form of a deadly new virus. That virus has gone on to cause the most unprecedented global disruption in generations, putting millions out of work, destroying businesses, depriving children of their schooling, and visiting tragedy on families in every country worldwide. The world is still not sure about how to deal with COVID-19, but after the harrowing events of the past few months, one thing the whole world is sure about is the vital importance of connectivity. For those of us participating in this first virtual IMS, digital technology has helped us ensure that our lives continue as normally as possible. It helped us to continue working, to stay connected to loved ones. It kept us entertained, allowed us to shop for the goods we needed online, and allowed our children to pursue their studies in the face of classroom closures. To put it simply, none of us participating in this conference today could imagine our lives without the Internet. And yet, right now, every second person on our planet has to survive without that vital lifeline, because in this digital age, a shocking 3.6 billion people remain totally cut off from the online world. In fact, I suspect that figure might even prove to be a conservative one. Even the world's wealthiest countries suffer from a digital divide separating connected and unconnected communities. And last year's State of Broadband Report from the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, it highlighted the fact that a great many people that we currently count as connected in global statistics actually lack the speed, devices, and service affordability that would make connectivity meaningful in their lives. The reality is that those of us with fast broadband connections are the privileged few. We are modern digital aristocrats, living amidst billions of digitally deprived. Sometimes it takes a crisis like the COVID pandemic to remind us how profoundly transformational an Internet connection can be. And that powerful transformative potential can be magnified many times over when meaningful connectivity is put in the hands of people held back for too long, through the lack of access to the power of information. Ladies and gentlemen, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Developments were forged on the conviction that all people must enjoy equal access to the same opportunities. When the world signed up to this agenda, our pledge was simple, leave no one behind. In the 21st century and in the wake of the COVID pandemic, I think there's no longer any doubt that leaving no one behind means meaningful universal access to digital technologies. There's a lot of talk of the need to define a new normal for our post-COVID world. For me, that new normal needs to include broadband access for all. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urges us to use the COVID crisis to build back better. I want to go a step further and urge us to build back better with broadband. COVID-19 is a wake-up call. A wake-up call about why we need to dramatically accelerate efforts to bring unconnected people and communities online. Because we will never leverage that truly transformational network effect until everyone is connected. Can technology really help us achieve our goal of global equality? I very much believe it can. To convince you, I want to show you a few short examples of digital applications linked to the 17 SDGs. Let's begin with agriculture. Until quite recently, this was one of the SDGs that struggled to find meaningful digital applications. But that's now changing fast, with clever apps for smartphones and IoT-based services that use low-cost environmental sensors to regulate parameters like water use. At ITU's most recent AI for Good Summit, I was chatting to David Hughes, a Penn State University scientist who's working with UN Food and Agriculture Organization to develop a new digital application to help African farmers combat pests that threaten crops and food security. Let's take a look. Cassava is a really important crop. It provides for over 500 million Africans every day. Cassava is a good source of nutrients. It can withstand harsh conditions, and because of that a lot of people are farming it. There are several diseases that affect cassava, and they make the roots unedible. These diseases are reducing the cassava crops by between 40% to 100%. So we're trying to use machine learning to respond to those diseases. The app that we've designed can diagnose multiple diseases. You wave your phone over a specific leaf, and if it has a symptom, a box will pop up saying you have this problem. When you get a diagnosis, you learn about the best management practices. We're in a very rural location. People don't have access to internet, and TensorFlow is the only platform out there that can allow us to build these advanced models but deploy them onto a phone. Because out in the field, we need to give the farmers the access to the information immediately. So with AI tools and machine learning, you can grow more crops, you can protect them, and you can have a much more reliable source of food. AI offers the prospect to fundamentally transform the life of hundreds of millions of farms around the world. You can see a product that can actually make someone's life better. This is kind of revolutionary. Isn't that an inspiring use of AI for good? One of the great things about this app is that it works in local languages through a voice interface. You don't need to know how to use a computer. You don't need to know how to speak English. You don't even need to know how to read and write. Anyone with access to a smartphone can use it. This is a really compelling example of what it means to bring meaningful connectivity to the people who can benefit most. What about the use of tech in two of the classic frontiers of global development, health and education? Let's start with health. We know that tech is increasingly being used for diagnosis in rich nations. Can it help poorer countries too? Sure it can. One great example is ITU's Be Healthy Be Mobile partnership with the World Health Organization, WHO. This initiative uses ordinary 2G mobile phones to deliver health information and reminders about vaccines, screenings and more. It's already dramatically changing health outcomes in 11 countries and in the wake of the COVID crisis, ITU and WHO have been leveraging the Be Healthy Be Mobile program to send text messages with COVID health and safety advice to communities throughout Africa. But the video I want to show you is about another aspect of health care that's often overlooked, that is the cost. Let's take a look at an innovative use of technology that blends both digital financial inclusion and mobile health. In Kenya, mobile phone access has reached almost 90% and higher. And we thought the best way to gain access for medical care would be through that device. Before I was born in Tiba, I was in a hospital where I had cash. And sometime when I was born in Tiba, my family was in a hospital. Tiba is basically M for mobile. Tiba is a treatment in Swahili, so it's mobile treatment. We came up as partners and thought what is it that we can do to take advantage of the digital agenda, to take advantage of the fact that Kenya has been an upward trend in mobile phone penetration. We have almost 600 hospitals who are working with us in a network across the country providing health care services. This is a major success for us. In terms of using mobile phones for financial services and mobile money, I think health is the next big beneficiary. The M-Tiba project is another great example of what we mean by meaningful connectivity, that is services that offer real value to local people, homegrown to meet local needs, and local platforms. What about education? Can tech play a meaningful role in the developing world? We know that computers cannot replace teachers, but we also know that the Internet is the most amazing, most accessible library ever conceived. Connecting students and teachers to this wealth of information in languages they can understand could be the most powerful engine of transformation the world has ever seen. And having a broadband Internet connection would mean that no child need ever again to lose access to schooling, even in the midst of a pandemic like the one that we're living through now. That's why ITU is partnering with UNICEF and others to lead a global project to connect every school in the world and every child to information, opportunity, and choice. The Giga project is ambitious, but just look at the demographics. For me, these figures show us that linking young people to the power of digital technologies will be absolutely vital to achieving the development outcomes we want. The Giga project tackles the problem of basic education. But what if we're trying to apply digital technologies to transform an entire community? I want to show you an example of a new project that takes a holistic approach to digital with the aim of transforming the lives of people in one of the poorest nations on Earth. The Niger 2.0 Smart Villages project uses low-cost VSAT technology to connect two villages east and west of the capital of Niame. A local Wi-Fi hotspot links to a microserver charged with locally appropriate Wikipedia information, which is regularly updated. Innovated apps have been mounted on tablets as plug-and-play solutions and handed out to local people to introduce and support digital education, digital health, and digital agriculture. Local health workers use tablets for telemedicine and e-health services, and teachers use them in classrooms where access to printed learning resources is extremely limited. Community information is being made available via an innovative talking book device loaded with pre-recorded information available at the top of a finger. And taking advantage of the country's rising mobile penetration, half of Niger's population now has a 2G or better mobile phone. The project uses SMS alerts and voice messages to inform farmers about agriculture best practices related to crops and livestock, as well as current local market prices for their produce. Let's take a look at what this innovative and ambitious project might mean for local people. The Niger 2.0 Smart Villages project has set out to significantly improve the lives of people in rural Niger, achieving clear milestones in meeting sustainable development goals. Key Nigerian government agencies, such as the Ministry of Health, Education and Agriculture, have coordinated efforts in a so-called whole-of-government approach to achieve the long-term goals of the Smart Village project. The National Agency for the Information Society, ANSI, is at the forefront. UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNESCO and the International Telecommunication Union, under the one UN umbrella, along with NGOs, such as the Digital Impact Alliance, Université Numerique Francophone Mondiale and Ter des Hommes, are assisting with their expertise and providing both hardware and digital applications. Innovative apps mounted on tablets as plug-and-play solutions have been prepared for distribution in rural communities to introduce and support e-education, e-health and e-agriculture. I hope these few short videos have convinced you of the powerful transformational effect that digital technologies can have on poor communities. But what about the power of technology to change the life of an individual? To make this final point, I want to introduce you to a very special person, Joanne O'Reardon. Joanne was born without arms and legs. Nobody knows what caused her very rare condition, but this brave and inspiring young woman has not let her disability stand in her way. Instead, she's embraced technology to empower her to follow her dreams. Joanne came to speak at ITU's first International Girls and ICT Day event in New York in 2012. And since then, she's become a famous motivational speaker. She's won awards for her advocacy on behalf of persons with disabilities. She serves as a consultant to the Irish government and international panels on disability policy. She's earned a degree in criminology from the University College Cork. And she writes regular sports columns for the prestigious Irish Times newspaper. Born with a rare medical disability known as Total Emilia, Joanne O'Reardon is one out of seven people in the last 18 years, faced with living a life without limbs. However, her extremely rare condition didn't stop her from carving a future that was both socially inclusive and educationally rewarding. O'Reardon was first introduced to the media at a very young age when she openly challenged the Irish government on proposed budget cuts, which would affect those living with disabilities. Due to her strong response, the proposed cut was reversed and as a result, O'Reardon became a national symbol of hope and a global voice for the disabled. On her 16th birthday, she delivered a landmark speech at the United Nations to the world's leading women in technology on how technology positively transformed her life by allowing her to live independently. As you could see, I was barmed out of my limbs, but my maximum life is no limbs, no limits. I use technology in all aspects of my life. All my own life, I've struggled and overcome barriers. Passionate about technology, O'Reardon is furthering her impact by collaborating with Trinity College in Dublin to design Robbie the Robot, which will allow people with disabilities to live a comfortable and independent life. Although the project is in its early stages, she is confident that with the time and funding, her dream will become a reality. O'Reardon has become an ambassador for all people living with disabilities. Whether through a TEDx talk, serving on the Irish Government's advisory council for young people, or teaming up with technology companies, O'Reardon shares her story and actively harnesses the power of technology to successfully advocate for a better quality of life for those living with disabilities. Ongoing advances in robotics and AI will continue to dramatically improve the life of Joanne and the lives of millions of others around the world living with a disability. This is an area where the human side of digital is at its most visible and its most valuable. Ladies and gentlemen, in an age of unprecedented technological innovation, we live in a world where many billions are still denied the basic opportunity to be connected. These people are increasingly isolated from a world that is evolving without the benefit of their participation and their unique contribution. And we are all of us much poorer for their absence. I truly believe that technology is the most powerful tool humanity has ever had to break down barriers and bring us closer together. Our task is to change this picture so that this becomes this. Because only when everyone is connected to the power of digital can we be truly sure of fulfilling that vision to leave no one behind. Thank you.