 of Germany. We are also joined by Dr. Harik Algurg, CEO and Vice-Chairman of Dubai Curse, who is joining us in person. We have also Nicolas Mayenkort, CEO of DreamLab, but also we are joined by Kerstin Jutner, Liaison Officer Roder Schwarz, Maria Janowy Lovic, from SAFE Online Director and Violence Global Partnership, Elisabeth von Glenn, Policy Advisor at GIZ, Government of Germany, but all today representing the Equals partnership, as well as René Arnold, Vice-President of the Public Affairs Strategy at Huawei, who is with us here physically, but also who is supported and who will be introducing intervention by Ms. Vicky Tsang, Vice-President of Corporate Communications, Chief Editorial Department by Huawei Technologies Co-LTD. And we will be also joined today virtually by his Excellency Tadej Rupel, Ambassador, National Coordinator for External Aspects of Digitalization, AI Cybersecurity at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia. So welcome to the stage and let's start the presentation of the pledges. I remind that the time for the presentation is short. You have three minutes to make your pledge and the first I would like to invite to make the presentation his Excellency Tadej Rupel, Ambassador, National Coordinator for External Aspects of Digitalization, AI and Cybersecurity from Slovenia. Over to you. Thank you so much. Excellency's distinguished partner to connect digital coalition members. It's my great pleasure to join today's celebration of achievements and implementation of connectivity projects around the world on behalf of Slovenia. Connectivity is shaping the quality of our lives on a daily basis. They are imperative for education, work, services, and meaningful participation. It is therefore crucial to take decisive steps to ensure accessible, inclusive, safe, secure, and sustainable connectivity for all. We are delighted to be part of the digital coalition that mobilize a variety of partners from governments, private sector, and civil society in order to connect the unconnected. This year Slovenia celebrates 30th anniversary of its membership in the ITU. In three decades we have come a long way to connect our citizens and to develop a resilient and inclusive ICT ecosystem. We therefore stands ready to share our knowledge and best practices to bridge the digital divide globally. After first pledges made by our Minister of Digital Transformation and the World Telecommunication Development Conference in Kigali, I have the honor to present a new joint pledge today. Slovenia, France, and Montenegro pledge to establish the Western Balkans Cyber Capacity Center. We observe with concern how multiple cyber incidents such as the recent ones in Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia, and Herzegovina expose the vulnerability of countries to cyber attacks and cyber crime. We therefore decided to join forces in order to enhance cyber resilience of the Western Balkan region through cooperation, training, and capacity building. We then aim to contribute to the global efforts for peace and stability in cyberspace. The regional center will cover three aspects of operational aspect training, expert training, cyber security, fight against cyber crime and cyber diplomacy. Exchange of information and good practices and training courses will aim to strengthen the cyber culture, develop the expertise of active practitioners, and create a regional cooperation network. The center will also aim to introduce cyber curricula at the universities of the region through the cooperation with the academic institutions from Slovenia and France. The center based in Podgorica, Montenegro enjoys great support from all Western Balkans countries and we are looking forward to work in synergy with other partners, institutions, organizations, and international cyber capacity building programs to increase cyber resilience of the Western Balkan region. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Excellency, and congratulations on this occasion. We are looking forward to the enhanced capacities of this region, of these several countries, looking forward to your assistance through this action. So thank you very much one more time and now let's move to the next pledge, Bjorn Richter, representing the GIZ today. Thank you very much and I think that's also the spirit of the PTC since the beginning of this year, maybe to interlink also the pledges. Thanks for the announcement of His Excellency, Mr Ruppel. I think I can shortly call on him and say we have just got the support of the foreign office of Germany to work in exactly this area. We would like to strengthen this regional center with you on the lead, so much appreciated. And I think this is the spirit that Doreen and the PTC has really set up and 28 million US dollars is quite an enormous amount that you brought together. So I really gear up for everybody to meet the 30 billion US dollars by the end of the day. I understood it's still something lacking and we have done our level best to also support this process in the focal area too on local digital ecosystems. I think last week we had a fantastic milestone also for the cooperation between ITU and the partners of the digital ecosystem in Germany. We had the launch of the network of the digital global network that our minister Schultz has championed to showcase that digital transformation and particular fair and human-centered digital transformation is at the core of the international digital policy strategy of Germany. So that allowed us already to pledge to this audience the GovStack support. I think I just want to remind you that we have geared up the announcement of to develop 12 ICT building blocks to reach with digital e-government services, 2 million people. So really to scale this approach and we do this with the ITU but also with DIAL and the government of Estonia together. We would like to further announce our support to the country of Ukraine today. We have supported also during the visas chief information officer exchange with the chief digital officer Maxim on the Ukraine issue and I think we the German government is pledging additional support of 1.2 million euros for GovStack support to Ukraine to not only bring better registries for the recovery of Ukraine but also to enable Ukraine to share its digital public goods with the world. I think that should not be forgotten. They are also leading in a lot of areas on e-government with their e-government services. Last but not least I think the new announcement is really to work together on the area of feminist development policy particular on the area of equals. We were proud partners of equals I think from the first days onwards. We now would like to further this cooperation with the cooperation with Atinki our digital learning platform and equals network. I think tomorrow we will go more in depth but we will pledge we are pledging to reach out more than 500,000 females particular and underserved areas with that digital digital learning platform and we're pledging us all some of 25 million euros on this amount. Thank you so much and thanks for your leadership to read. Thank you very much and this is a real example of the great cooperation spirit and also amazing show of the way how we can bring together different stakeholders working on the similar teams to join forces and scale up the impact. So now let me move to the next pleasure and his excellency Dr. Tariq Al-Gurg as CEO of an vice chairman of Dubai's Curse. So the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Dubai cares we are an education philanthropy based in Dubai and everything we do is within the SDG for context and what links us with P2C we were there from day one with them is to support them from the education angle and as we know out of school youth what they need today is upskilling and without technology we will not be able to do that. ITU is also a strategic partner at the reward summit that we hosted last December at Expo 2020 Dubai where we came with three solutions towards how can we change education. One of them is a the reward global declaration on connectivity for education with UNESCO. Another one P2C also played a role there into identifying their partners as well but the most important thing is the guiding framework that we launched as well during the transforming education summit which guides countries on how to transform education. Our job here is to take IT youth and scaling all together with education to attack solutions in countries around the world and we will put our expertise into climate and education as Dubai cares has been selected not announced yet probably next month but has been selected by the COP28 to be the education content lead everything got to do with climate and education green skills green jobs towards green economies. This is a golden opportunity for all of us to combine efforts and to align our strategies and I would like to read the pledge and as humanity approaches the finish line of the decade of action it is important to recognize that a prosperous and sustainable future for all should not be a distant dream but rather a reality that is achievable through a complete rewiring of education so that it becomes the heart of win-win solutions across all SDGs the transformation of education for people and planet particularly with a view for green skills and jobs as well as green economies will require a whole of society ecosystem approach built on cross-sectoral collaboration and partnerships that leverage the power of connectivity and technology to accelerate progress particularly for those left farthest behind. Dubai cares is committed to supporting countries education transformation agendas to achieve their ambitious ambitions for people and planet through prioritizing and advocating for the vital role of ed tech and connectivity as the main enablers for systems change and human development by 2030 Dubai cares aims to support targeted initiatives that will provide necessary skilling capacity building informed policy and foster cross-sectoral partnerships towards connected technologies and ed tech to benefit over five million children and youth thank you very much right thank you very much for this commitment or strengthening the human capacity and building and now let us move come back from Dubai and we are moving to Switzerland to the dream Nicolas Maincourt CEO of the company thank you so much so we as well we try to address a global pervasive virulent problem actually the cyberspace so in 2022 insurers have reported up until now 8.4 trillion of damages induced through cyber if you put that to a context compared to natural disasters we talk about the 44 so cyber has surpassed tremendously the natural disasters and is imposing a huge challenge to insurers but also the world why is that digitalization is the digital transformation is in full swing and the digital transformation actually connects everybody with everything and everything with everybody it is connecting us globally and it leads to a massive hyper connectivity and this hyper connectivity leads to an exponential growth of public attack surfaces vulnerabilities the result of it we can read every day number of cyber attacks are exploding and pose a major threat to competitiveness national security and democracy now but what is it that cyber thing cyber is the first and only human-made dimension that is intangible invisible inaccessible with sensors for us and at the very same time is all pervasive all permitting in controlling places and controls all daily lives so it has a direct impact on businesses education information trading and the life literally of billions of people it also is a huge opportunity for the whole world we have it in our hands to actually create utopia and it's also a great opportunity of course for africa these new technologies can and will contribute to accelerate overall economic development and will help to better secure governments nations people and can help to prosper and thrive and thrive educational economic prosperity the smartphone is a driver of digitalization and for sure and especially in africa payment systems by mobile phones crop savings are just a few examples so far so good but digitalizations besides the tremendous opportunity and unprecedented opportunities also have a downside and price um this is the bot the bot is digital transformation without a solid cyber security fundamental background um can be very risky can be very costly and we have seen it is actually drastic uh cyber criminality is skyrocketing which brings me to the pledge five seconds oh my god in the P2C program so we pledge uh in the cyber for good uh to introduce a cyber observatory a cyber radar system a cyber radar system that helps nations manage measure their cyberspace in order to understand where are the public attack surfaces where are the vulnerabilities in order to manage those vulnerabilities to bring vulnerability levels down in order to create the hummus for a new economy for a new democracy for a new society to strive and prosper we have uh given the pledge to help five ldc countries for now um this is a good start but we actually want to have a lot more we want to help all the ldc's as a matter of fact the whole african country and the whole world anyway we go step by step um and these five countries that we pledged and committed to we will be doing in this batch and program last but not least i would like to end with a quote from michael jordan talent wins games but teamwork and intelligence win championships let's go for it right thank you very much for this commitment to strengthen the cyber security um capacities it was always told to me if you dream dream big and i think that we felt that you really aim at covering the whole africa so thank you very much for this we're looking forward to the implementation and now let me um move to the our next speaker miss kerstin jettner uh via son officer at the rudder schwarz in germany thank you very much uh dear durin distinguished guest dear team of partner to connect program thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak about our two pledges which are really important for rodent schwarz and showing our approaches in the region of africa and to support to bring forward sustainability long-term corporations commitments and education for young people and students before rodent schwarz got involved in p2c program i wouldn't believe that we are able to apply a pledge which would be really fits to the program with the right content in addition to my profession i'm a fitness instructor and i feel like in some of my fitness classes where my students doesn't believe in their capabilities but if we always keep trying very hard we will make it and finally also rodent schwarz kept moving on and we were able to contribute two great pledges which perfectly fit into the p2p program in may 2021 the idea has been created to invest in african universities and to install test labs which includes oscilloscopes signal analyzers power supplies and network analyzers for the purpose of education research and development because education matters and we want to support the young students and people rodent schwarz awarded two universities in africa one in gana kwame nukruma university of science and technology called knust and unb university naziboni and pokina fazo both universities fulfill the criteria of pushing universities with limited budget but also where we saw the potential to positively change current ranking in africa rodent schwarz objectives for such investment and projects are to establish the industry to create partnerships with universities to promote education and research and as well as radio frequency electronics and last but not least to boost technology driven entrepreneurship right now with both universities we have been signing sponsoring agreements with expectations recommendations and commitments for both sites the value of investment for both test labs will be around 1.2 million us dollar we see the big picture of p2c the partnerships and cooperation to close the gap to the digital connectivity and rodent schwarz is very excited to became part of it life is like a fitness class we experience we learn from it and we improve we create trust in ourselves to have the capability to build up strong long-term and sustainable cooperation in our business lives which we are very much looking forward to expand and develop in the future thank you very much great thank you very much for this commitment and the further supporting the building the capacities in africa and beyond and now let me move to our next speaker who will be introducing the other speaker so let me first hand over the floor and to rena ardo ardnolt vice president at the huawei who will be introducing miss viki zank vice president of corporate communication at the hua technologies thank you so much yaroslav and it's my great pleasure to be here in person which viki cannot be unfortunately but let me take this chance and thank you all thank you doreen thank you alex thank you to samir and the whole team of connect to recover for the wonderful event that we had last week in ethiopia which we all feel was a great success and has underlined the engagement that huawei is willing to do as a sector member of itu and now i would like to hand the floor over to viki to do our pledge and show how we can continue this engagement in the future thank you thank you renae dear excellency dear doreen ladies and gentlemen it's a great pleasure to be here to on behalf of huawei for over 30 years it has been huawei's mission to provide the solutions that connect people around the world in fact our technologies already provide connectivities to 3.5 billion people in more than 170 countries among them more than 60 million people in remote area have been connected by our rural star solutions however we all know that more work need to be done if you want to be true to our goal of leaving no one behind in the journey to a connected and intelligent world the itu's partner to connect initiatives take this mission seriously and today i'm very proud to announce that huawei is making a pledge to partner to connect by 2025 huawei's icd solution will bring connectivity to about 120 million people in remote area from over 80 countries in addition to connectivities we also support inclusive development in the p2c's first partner country cambodian we will work together with the ministry of posts and telecommunications and universities to provide 10 000 training opportunities for cambodians icd professionals in the next five years i also would like to provide an update for itu's connect to recover research computation supported by huawei 10 days ago we just congratulated 15 winning research teams from 22 countries worldwide and we do not stop there we will work together with itu to put some of the project's recommendation into action in canadia in canya a joint pilot project will be launched to foster digital inclusion and support policies that drive connectivity that will also contribute to our p2c pledge so we invite everyone to join us in this speed to build back better thank you for your attention thank you very much miss zang and mr arnold for these pledges and for connecting the people and committing to connecting the people but also providing them the trainings and the skills so thank you very much for that and now we are moving to the our next speaker miss maria manio my man manio lovich uh safe online director and violence global partnership the floris yours thank you so thank you so much um it's wonderful to be here today and witness the energy and commitment to make the world more connected but um as my husband usually says when i speak about my work i usually kill the conversation because i am usually the bear of bad news but the internet of today is not safe it is not safe for many people that we are trying to connect and as digital harms are on the rise we need to make sure that the connectivity we are bringing to the unconnected is not exacerbating their vulnerabilities and also hampering the progress in many areas that we care about as as a group including education health economic growth and so on our disruptive harm research conducted across the 13 countries in southern eastern africa and southeast asia shows that up to 20 percent of internet using children have experienced some form of online sexual abuse only last year so last year alone one in five kids in these 13 countries have experienced some form of online abuse and this is not acceptable um that is why our team at safe online is working to understand how digital connectivity and technologies are impacting and facilitating existing and new forms of abuse especially looking at the worst form of forms of those abuse which is a sexual exploitation of abuse um what we do is we invest in solutions technologies capacities and programs across the world to enable better responses to online abuse against children we also generate data and evidence that is sorely needed both on the trends and threats online but also on how we can better work and how we can understand what works to tackle these threats online we also advocate with governments uh industry private sector and key stakeholders such as yourselves to prioritize child online safety in your policies in your practices budgets as well as business practices and with that i want to say that end violence is super grateful to ITU for having started this initiative because it's so important to connect the unconnected but we also want to thank you for bringing together all these people who can help us make the internet safer for children with that in mind we want to pledge to use the network of 700 partners of end violence partnership as well as our 70 million uh investment portfolio to support the goals of partner to connect by ensuring that as the world is becoming more connected the benefits of the digital connectivity cannot can be enjoyed in a safe way especially for children this will be done by both leveraging our current investments in country capacities new technology tools and high-level policy work as well as our through our new investments in the coming three years where i want to take up the challenge of your own to reach soon to a 30 million for partner to connect but we are committing to invest at least an additional 100 million dollars in the next three years to make safe internet safer for children and for that we will need all of you to contribute and be partnered with us to make this pledge a reality and join our efforts to make the internet safer for kids thank you thank you very much and we are encouraging all to join the forces and also be active in this field which we're really on demand as we understand from your pledge so please join the forces and and now let's move to the next colleague who is representing today the equals elizabeth von glan the floor is yours thank you so much and good afternoon dear colleagues it's such a pleasure for me today to be representing the equals global partnership for gender equality in the digital age that germany is very proud to be a part of on behalf of the equals global partnership and the equals searing committee we are pleased to submit two pledges today one programmatic and one at voxy to partner to connect to highlight our shared focus on universal connectivity and the digital transformation of societies the equals partners pledge to build capacity and to provide access to free gender transformative foundational it skills training and e-mentoring for 1 million women and girls by 2026 this will be done by the her digital skills initiative with the goal of increasing the talent pipeline of girls and young women in technology and stand the program will include will include basic introduction to technological knowledge access to foundational it skills training and equals qualification that equals batch to boost woman's chance to access formal employment in the ICT sector as well as an e-mentoring program and as we heard earlier the germany learning platform a tingy will also contribute here to the skits for girls initiative via the creation of an equals ambassador program the partners also pledge to increase visibility build critical leadership and digital skills as well as provide mentoring and networking opportunities for 10 000 women leaders women leaders and entrepreneurs in the technology sector by 2026 our second pledge focuses on at voxy with the e skills members pledging to work together to bridge the gender digital divide by using resources and efforts aligned with the focus of the areas of partner to connect equals partners individually and collectively over the next five years commit to provide support and assistance to policymakers working on gender responsive technology implement the measurement and evaluation framework for partner programs and initiatives as well as increase public engagement by submitting these pledges equals partners hope to continue and strengthen their work to bridge the gender digital divide making sure that women have equal digital access skills and leadership thank you thank you very much for this pledge and also congratulations to the all winners of the equals awards today and we encourage all to also join the the partnership on this occasion so dear ladies and gentlemen we have also additional pledge coming from mr siva samasun drum and director of policy regulations and markets from the universal and postal union who has sent his pledge via the video so i would like to invite my colleagues to play the video perhaps some distinguished delegates ladies and gentlemen it is a great honor for the upu to participate in the very first partner to connect annual meeting and for me to have this opportunity to speak on behalf of the universal postal union the itu and the upu have a long history and share strong relationship connecting people and ensuring inclusiveness over the centuries the postal network offers a unique critical national infrastructure to facilitate the meaningful connectivity of businesses and citizens and to provide essential governmental commercial and financial services for the sustainable and inclusive development of the communities they serve however according to upu estimates more than 100 000 post offices of the 650 000 worldwide still remain unconnected to the internet putting these benefits at risk in many countries to bridge this gap and to realize the full potential of pause to advance socioeconomic development the upu pledges to meaningfully connect every post office in the world to the internet by 2030 through the connect dot post initiative connect dot post is a building block to advance the digital transformation of the postal network and to foster digital inclusion because connecting post offices is connecting communities closing the digital divide requires leadership and global cooperation the upu is committed to lead this initiative and looks forward to working together with the partner to connect coalition to achieve universal and meaningful connectivity i wish all of you a very productive meeting and my sincere apologies for not being there with you today thank you ladies and gentlemen and this brings us to the end of our session this was only the sample of the pledges which we just received recently we've heard about multimillion commitments multimillion outreach impact and a lot of pledges in the which will be connecting people everywhere and powering communities building digital ecosystem and incentivizing the investment so please don't hesitate to think about your next pledge and use this opportunity as encouragement and to make the pledge and not today but at the latest tomorrow so make this pledge to us today that by tomorrow we see at least the one pledge from each of you it can be personal pledge as well and we really keep you accountable for that so thank you very much for your attention and with this i would like to call for a round of the applause for all our pleasures of course those who are today with us in the room but also those who join us remotely and with this i would like to thank you very much and handing over to our moderator thank you and i would invite all our colleagues to take the seats in the public thank you thank you very much and mr. Yerousta Ponda for that moderation there thank you so excellent so this is really the we're going up to the finishing line now the closing session is is coming up and we'll just give the speakers a few moments our pleasures a few moments to take their seats again this closing session is going to mark the end of the first p2c annual meeting it's going to highlight the key outcomes of the day and we'll present the outlook and the next steps to the coalition in the new year and we'll be inviting you to celebrate the accomplishments that were made in 2022 so joining us for the closing session um will be mr. Fayaz King special advisor the office of the secretary general envoy of technology uh dr. Cosmer Zaba Zaba who will be who is the chief of partnerships for digital development department and the director-elect for the telecommunication development bureau who's also joining us virtually and of course miss Dorian Bogdan-Martin who is here with us physically director of the ITU telecommunication development bureau and secretary general so first of all I would like to ask mr. Fayaz King special advisor for the office of the secretary general envoy and technology for his remarks mr. King the floor is yours thank you thank you so much and a very good afternoon and good morning for those of us on this side of the Atlantic it's been an absolute pleasure and honor to have been part of the partner to connect collision since its inception last year the idea of all of us coming together to support ITU and to support digital connectivity resonates exceptionally well with me and exceptionally well with all of us at the side of Atlantic in my previous role at UNICEF I oversaw Giga a collaboration of UNICEF and ITU where we were working to connect every school to the internet the Giga knot continues doubling from 20 to 40 countries building on the 2.1 million schools already mapped and supporting connectivity of 25 000 schools 10 million students in this next phase they also launching the open source technology center in Barcelona with the headquarters now in Geneva closer to ITU the objective being to honor our pledge that we made last earlier this year of half a billion students being connected to the internet and 2.8 million schools all this by 2030 digital connectivity as we all know plays an important role in people's lives but unfortunately 2.7 billion people are not connected to the internet and the absence of this foundation layer really becomes a challenge and the need for us to actually bridge this digital divide is a reality universal connectivity is at the heart of the United Nations goal to achieve the more open and free and secure digital future for all and it's a key priority in the Secretary General's roadmap for digital cooperation to achieve this roadmap we need to ensure that we do so in a safe affordable and meaningful way we need to connect and adopt a people-centric approach in everything we do leaving no one behind and starting with the most difficult to reach first every opportunity lies within everything that we do we need to take advantage of that our office at the tech envoy supports the partner to connect collision and we'd like to draw focus to four specific issues which we can look at and build on digital public infrastructure which is covered in our digital public goods initiatives data for development which is part of our SDGs data comments which forms a basis of open source and capacity building skill sets very very important a 3.5 million shortage of data scientists around the world we need to bridge that gap if we want to make digital cooperation and connectivity of people to the internet a real reality we will prepare ourselves for the summit of the future in 2024 by working on the global digital compact the technology know how and the capacity building is key for us to deliver data and open software is the lifeblood of the digital economy i'd like to encourage all our partners in the partner to connect to remain firm with their commitments and to push in every direction so that the global digital economy and the global digital compact become one in the same and we connect everybody to the internet in a safe and inclusive manner thank you so much for being partners with us all in this partner to connect thank you thank you very much indeed mr fias king and thank you for taking the time to deliver those remarks i would now like to hand the floor to dr cosmer zava zava chief of partnerships for digital development department and director elect for the telecommunication development bureau who will give us his closing remarks thank you very much indeed thank you very much max for giving me the floor first and foremost i would like to thank all the panelists the pleasures and winners of the ninth equals in tech awards special thanks to dorin for bringing us all together and for launching this important milestone event for the coalition this afternoon um i would like just to say a partner to connect provides us an opportunity for us together to impact all sectors all people without living in a place and no one behind i will entitle my closing remarks as where do we go from here from the telecommunication development bureau side i would like just to let you know that we believe that uh since we are member driven our membership met in june at the world telecommunication development conference and adopted an action plan our membership also met in a book arrest at the plan potential conference so we are expected to be implementing those outcomes the priorities that we get from the membership they have to tell with the partner to connect aims and objectives connectivity is an issue digital transformation is very important enabling environment to pay way for the private sector and industry to invest critical resource mobilization and international cooperation is important and i think this spirit is evident in the partner to connect spirit now i was a bit disappointed by kestin my good friend from rodent schwarz when she started saying i'm a personal trainer i thought she was going to make a personal pledge uh to make sure the ict community is a healthy and run something virtual across the globe but i think the second important thing that i wanted to mention also is that i would envisage us running a number of round tables based on the partner to connect initiative and make sure that we bring countries together and also bring the partners together and we do much making those that played in the area of infrastructure development have a conversation with those that have infrastructure is their priority skills capacity building etc so that our pledges are relevant we will continuously be inviting for pledges i don't think the ketan will ever come down because the challenge before us is a huge when you look at the gaps that we have between regions between people and communities we should always endeavor to pull resources together our next challenge is obviously to record track monitor and the report on the pledges that we made so that the membership knows exactly where we stand the pattern has no way to stand we stand all of us and the coordinated effort is very important for us of course gathering like this on an annual basis is important because then we can check what progress we are making and what pitfalls we would have encountered and how we could counter those challenges and in conclusion i would like to say this is a great opportunity to bring everyone together to connect it and connected and to bring online the remaining 2.7 people to deliver skills for all to create an enabling environment of course for industry and private sector to play their role academia as well and to strive to make our cities affordable our latest effects and figures released about a week ago pointed to the fact that i cities are becoming more affordable and we applauded that but not more affordable to everyone in the world those in the least developed countries still encounter high costs and that's an impediment for them to come online and we would like to encourage of course our regulators policy makers to take measures to make sure that and industry as well to make sure that the devices and the services are continuously getting affordable we are for win-win partnerships and the partner to connect is our visa to invest our meaningful connectivity with one peoples and one shared vision and with this i thank you thank you very much indeed Dr. Cosmer Zava Zava for those words of encouragement and and that commitment to further the cause i would now like to give the floor to Mr. Warren Bogdan Martin the proponent of partner to connect for who has been the most enthusiastic person i've ever met with regards to this particular venture it's from the get go and as she needs no introduction but i'll tell you again just in case you missed it she's director of the international telecommunication telecommunication development bureau and of course she will be secretary general on january the first of it thank you very much Dorian Bogdan Martin the floor is yours thank you thank you so much uh max and thank you as well to uh to faiz to cosmos nice to see you see you both uh ladies and gentlemen what a day oh max it's been a big day and we're coming to the end of our our first but not last this is just the beginning our first annual partner to connect meeting i hope today was informative i hope it was enriching i hope it challenged you a bit i hope it was energizing i hope as max requested you made some new friends you were able to to network build new relationships and also perhaps broker some some new partnerships i also hope that you were able to join the equals in tech awards ceremony which was i think incredible the the winners that we had this year their their their stories i hope that we can continue building upon that as i said at the opening our first full year of partner to connect i think it has notched up extraordinary results i think they far exceeded our our hopes when we first began brainstorming partner to connect more than a year ago with some of you in in this room and of course faiz was also there in a different capacity at at the beginning we worked closely with the tech envoys office and with ohr lls i think today we raised the bar even even higher my team has has just given me the numbers and on hell since you handed me the paper anything else you want to report okay well i think yarslav granted us permission to go until tomorrow is that right yarslav so so i will i'll share with you the the latest numbers in in just a moment but i think we can we can all be very proud of what we we have accomplished and what i would like to to leave you with today for p2c to truly realize its potential to truly realize its potential as a powerful game changer and we know it can be that powerful powerful game changer we have to keep the momentum going we have to keep that momentum going we do need all hands on deck we need each and every one of you i want to acknowledge our telecommunications development advisory group chair that's with us roxanne we need you to our study group two chair who's just walked in our study group has been looking at digital transformation fadel we need you we need your group and i think flur our study group one chair was with us was with us before and she's looking at the enabling enabling frameworks for universal connectivity we need all hands on deck because our mission is urgent people are counting on us and they they can't wait so we need to double down and get it done next year many of us will participate in the ldc five conference and we heard this morning from the under secretary it was great to hear some of the specific new pledges linked to ldc's she explained to us this morning the importance of connectivity for the ldc's with the focus on the world's most in need countries and economies i think this upcoming conference offers us a unique opportunity for p2c for the community and for the pledgers to come forward and help support access to connectivity in those ldc's it's a unique chance it will help us to directly engage with leaders focusing on the importance of of digital inclusion working together with our target communities governments the private sector civil society academia and ngo's working at the grassroots level to really make make a difference just imagine what we could achieve if we were able to generate the same level of energy and commitment around connecting unconnected at ldc five that we actually saw this year at the wtdc in kigali i would add just imagine how the success of our efforts could constitute a powerful input to connect all people which is the specific stream that faez is is working on in the context of the global digital compact that will be negotiated next year it's with that in mind along with the recognition that p2c needs to be self-sustaining because if we're going to realize the ambitious targets that we have set we need to ensure that it is self-sustaining and that the momentum continues and with that in mind we are putting in place a partner to connect global advisory board the role of of that board will be to provide a solid governance structure and also a financial footing for p2c as we go forward so that we can expand our activities which is key and that we can further raise the profile so that we can attract new partners and new pledgers and to nurture a strong and sustainable p2c community underpinning all of that is the comprehensive online dashboard if you've had the opportunity to check it out that will continue to support regular rigorous and transparent reporting so that we can all make sure that everything stays on track so before I conclude and hand back the floor to max I do want to thank the p2c pledgers especially the the new pledges that have come forward today our partners our focus area leaders our working groups and of course the p2c secretariat that are with us today maybe the p2c secretariat can stand up and be recognized p2c secretariat please we also have some p2c secretariat virtually Anna Sepulveda in particular who wanted to be here but she couldn't so thank you Anna and of course I want to thank the broader ITU team this is a team effort picking up on the Michael Jordan quote it's a it's teamwork because we want to win the championship so if the rest of the ITU team that's in the room if you guys could also stand to be recognized please thank you and there's some shy ones in the back that did not stand but thank you thank you all because it really was it was teamwork and it was a creative innovative group and I'm very grateful grateful to that for that and of course thank thank you all to our virtual participants for being with us I think we still have almost a hundred virtual participants and that's that's a that's a good sign so now I get to tell you the final numbers I'm happy I wouldn't say thrilled thrilled but I am very happy to announce that we have 578 pledges so this morning I mentioned 552 so we're at 578 worth 29 920 million so we're 80 million short for my 30 billion goal and Yaroslav has given us till tomorrow to get to that goal so let's keep going and we have had pledges from 280 entities from 118 countries so I think that's that's really impressive and of course making a pledge is great but it's even more important to implement it so please do talk to your friends talk to your partners we need to bring more more pledges forward so that we can get out there and connect the unconnected with that again thank you all I hope you will join us we're going to have a little reception just outside this room to celebrate because I do think this is an opportunity to celebrate some great accomplishments and achievements and of course I want to wish all of you a very very happy holiday season my best wishes for 2023 Merry Christmas happy Hanukkah or whatever else you you might be celebrating enjoy your families your friends and stay healthy and look forward to welcoming you back in this room in the new year thank you and back to you Max thank you very much Doreen well I think you said it all what a day but also what a year ahead I'm sure given all the pledges and all the pledges to come as well so it just again as Doreen has said we thank every single participant every single speaker every single pleasure for their remarks for their participation for their following this through for their meeting and discussing in the breakout sessions and as I say I think it's been extremely illuminating it's been extremely inspiring and I'm sure that it will continue to to be so and do so next into next year and beyond as Doreen mentioned there are some celebratory reception drinks outside so all of you who are here physically in the room you have earned it so please feel free to partake in that all of those joining us virtually maybe next time but we say certainly look forward to seeing you again Mr King I'm sure that offers open to you to to take a small libation with us next time but anyway as I say this is this is the first annual general meeting and annual meeting I should say of the partner to connect and I'm sure there'll be plenty more so from me Max Jacobson Gonzalez thank you very much indeed for joining us today and we look forward to catching up with you all again very soon thanks very much indeed and goodbye