 Thank you very much. Distinguished high-degree attorneys here present. Distinguished colleagues and friends, all protocol observed. On behalf of the Secretary General of ITU, it is my pleasure to welcome you all to the Board of Commission Working Group on Gender. In a world where 95 percent of the jobs require ICT scales, and a world where achieving gender equality is still a big challenge, the work of this group of the Board of Commission is key to achieving social inclusion, I would say, even social cohesion. Information and communication technologies are no longer about hardware or software. They are not about you and me. ICT are now about empowering the world's citizens, particularly those who are at the bottom of the development pyramid. It is my true belief, and I'm sure you will all agree with me, that investing in women has a multiplier effect, because women will reinvest in their families and their communities. It's also a reality that women's empowerment boils down to economics, because women who are financially empowered are more likely to have access to health care, exercise a legal right, and live in a safe environment. This is the reason why we may embrace the enabling power of ICT to improve the lives of women all over the world, both in developed and developing countries and across all sectors. Dear members of the working group on gender, one way is the Board of Commission, and particularly this working group can make a difference is to advocate, to ensure that gender issues are reflected in the Board of Policies. Some progress has already been made in this regard with gender speciality, especially included in almost a third of the developing countries' national broadband plans. The working group on gender may also want to consider and set targets as deemed appropriate on the following action line. First, increasing the number of girls and women who achieve, who receive an education in ICT, science, technology, engineering and mathematics, we will order for them to become fully part of the creation of the technologies that have become the basic tool for our daily life. Second, encouraging ICT businesses to attract, recruit, retain and promote women. Third, providing digital literacy training to women at the bottom of the development pyramid in order to open doors to the most vulnerable women and enable them to use ICT to expand their entrepreneurial activities. And fourth, to monitor the gender gap in the ICT sector to enable governments and industry to adopt measures to bridge the ICT gender gap. This working group includes, this working group includes many partners that we, ITU and particularly telecommunications development bureau, have been working with and I can safely say that we have the know-how and the expertise in this group to set targets and to work together to achieve them. One of the priority areas of the ITU in particular ability is related to digital inclusion. We have therefore got experiences and resources such as statistics, studies of universal service firms, platforms such as Girl in ICT portal, Technic Girl and I hear by on behalf of ITU, commit to put all those resources at your disposal to support your work. My colleague Doreen Bogdan will talk to you more in detail about our ongoing activities and resources and some of the members here are our partner in it. On this note, let me say that together we really do have the power to create gender equality and empowerment of women through broadband. If you have the power to do it, let's do it now. Thank you.