 Welcome to the World Summit on the Information Society 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland. And I'm delighted to be joined by Ambassador Danielse Pulvidder, who is the chair of the Wissis Forum. Now Wissis this year has a particular focus because it seems to be the meeting ground where the Wissis Action Lines and the Sustainable Development Goals come together. Well, the Wissis Forum is a discussion forum. The Wissis Action Lines are specific actions in the area of ICTs that we're going to use to ensure that we have a people-centered, development-oriented Information Society. So each of those actions in turn contributes to the fulfilling or the meeting of one of the targets that was initiated by the Sustainable Development Goals. Now there are 17 Sustainable Development Goals. You've been chairing an awful lot of these panels. Where do you see are the real challenges in actually using information and communication technology to achieve the implementation of some of those goals? Well the real challenge is in making sure that the services reach the hardest to reach. So particularly in rural populations or very poor populations. In rural populations the problem that you have is that the cost per person of reaching a network is dramatically higher because you can't aggregate those costs among a large number of people. And in poor populations it's because there's just not enough money there to pay for services. So what came out of this event for us was two things. One, the call for cooperative collaborative efforts to meet those needs. And then two, the degree to which once the connectivity need is met, that people are doing really exciting and creative things about how to use that connectivity to actually help people on the ground. So the degree to which a woman who has never had access to information before can use the connectivity of communications access to have a stronger reproductive health system to better monitor what she should and should not be doing while she's pregnant in order to ensure that she has a healthy child. Or how people, kids who are in rural communities and don't have access to good schools can access either information or classes online. Those sorts of things, right? So it's an interesting combination of both basic execution of connectivity needs as well as skill development and capacity building needs for human beings to use that connectivity. It's interesting that you pick up an example of women because there's a particular focus I think on inclusion and making sure that women actually have the use of these technologies are trained in these technologies so that they can also benefit and reap the benefits of connectivity. Yes, and it's unfortunate but true that you see a gender gap regardless of actually economic conditions that, regardless of economic conditions, there's still a disparity in access to information and communications technologies for women. And it's not just about the ability of women or really anybody to use technologies, but what we find is that once they use technologies, they can use them for whatever they wish to do. So there's really no, almost no human activity anymore that wouldn't benefit from knowing how to use technology and communications to improve what you do to do it better, which I think is something you're familiar with. What is also interesting and some of the delegates have been telling me is when we talk about bridging the digital divide, we always think that it's between the poor and the rich countries, but in fact there is that digital divide in some of the advanced economies, for example in mine in the UK, there's concern that the elderly are not going to actually reap the benefits and that they've become marginalized. So it's an issue that exists also in the advanced economies. It exists within and between nations. So within nations you have divides of access. So in the case of the elderly, it's not a divide of access, it's a divide of use and relevance. So a lot of the elderly, and this is true in the United States as well, either don't know how to use technology or don't think it's relevant to their lives. But once they do start using it, particularly if you're elderly and isolated, being able to connect with other people who are also elderly and physically not near you helps you have a sense of community and enriches your life as well. But that's a form of a divide that we need to address and we need to address it in the developed world as well. But even the actual access divide in the United States at least exists. So for example a lot of our historic Indian reservations aren't as well connected as they should be. A lot of very rural communities aren't as well connected as they should be. And those are all things that we're working to address. There are many things of course to address. How are you actually going to monitor whether you're on track with all of these different action lines to meet some of these sustainable development goals? Well there are a number of mechanisms for doing that. The ITU has statistical mechanisms for doing that so ministries will report on an annual basis about connectivity results in their own countries. But then we have events like the WSIS Forum where you have both governmental and non-governmental leaders in the field coming to tell their stories. What's working in our country, what's not working in our country, these are best practices and case examples of success, what can we do to help others and what can we learn from each other. And those are also mechanisms by which to continue ensuring progress towards the ultimate goals. Because this really seems to be the spirit of WSIS. It's about the exchange of information, know how, what works and what doesn't work. Right. It's about making sure, it's about the information society. It's not about information and communications technologies. They're just a tool. The goal is the construction of a society in which people not only have access to information but can use that access to develop knowledge and then hopefully over time we acquire wisdom as well. But they're three different things. You've been the chair of WSIS for WSIS 2016. What has stood out for you in the forum this year? Well this year for the first time it was an interactive forum. Particularly we've just had people stand at a podium and report whatever it is they came to the group to report. And in this time what we decided to do was mix it up a little bit and have both governmental and non-governmental people sitting on panels and asking each other's questions and really trying to delve into, oh so you did that. How did you do it or why did you do it and how did it affect specifically women or how did it affect specifically children. And that kind of conversation we believe resulted in a much more enjoyable and participatory environment and again sort of the common themes of cooperation and collaboration rather than complaint were really felt throughout the forum. Thank you very much Ambassador Daniel Sipulvada for joining us here at the WSIS Forum 2016. And please do tune in to the ITU YouTube channel where you can hear many videos from the experts at the WSIS Forum 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland.