 Welcome to the ITU Plenty Potentiary Conference 2018 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where I'm very pleased to be joining this studio now by Kirill Opparim, who is the head of the ITU regional office for the Commonwealth of Independent States. Welcome to the studio. Thank you. Thank you for inviting. Good afternoon. Kirill, I wanted to start off by talking about the theme for this year's Plenty Potentiary Conference is connecting the world together. How has your region been making strides to get everyone connected over the last four years? Well, first of all, I would like to say that according to latest statistics from ITU, which is IDI statistics, ICT Development Index, my region, region where I work is number two after Europe. In addition, the difference between countries in my region is not very big, which means we are well aligned and all together the whole region works a lot in terms of ICT development. There are huge programs, state programs, like, for example, in Russia there is a program of putting fiber optics to all the settlements with a population above 250 people. So, all together they build, like, let me say, 280,000 kilometers of fiber optics, which is almost equal to distance to the moon, by the way. So, it's a huge program. There are also very good programs in Central Asia. For example, in Kyrgystan, they have a program called Taza Qom, which is open society or something. Very good program for electronic government and fiber optics as well and many, many, many other services. There are good programs in Azerbaijan for ICT development. There are good programs in other Central Asia countries, driven by World Bank as well and ITU as well. So, the whole region is developing very, very fast and they put a lot of priority and efforts to develop the ICT. What are the major challenges and opportunities there? I would say in my region it's geography, first of all, because there are huge remote areas, especially in Russia, Kazakhstan, but actually every country has it. Mountainous areas, very remote areas. So, to put fiber optics to one particular village, it could be hundreds of kilometers and a lot of investment. And of course it has to be supported by government because private companies they cannot just invest because the profit will be maybe not that obvious. So, that's one of challenges. Another challenge is of course to align the regulatory, to align the laws so that people can really use it. It will not be very expensive and by the way in my region these are quite good prices, quite cheap to be honest in comparison to Europe, to America. So, a lot is done there but we have to work further. For example, roaming prices are still not very well aligned so you can really pay a lot when you travel even in the region. So, there are still many things to do and challenges are here as well. And opportunities for investment as well in the region? Yes, for sure. In terms of the ITUs plans in next year, perhaps you could tell us for the next couple of years what are there any specific events, meetings, initiatives that are happening that you are particularly keen on talking about? Well, all in all my office is working based on the demand from the region. So, our first priority is to fulfil the demands. So, every year we do some kind of meetings and we ask what do you want? You in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Gergystan, Belarus, they put their priorities, what they are interested. And then we start our planning. These are seminars, training, workshops, conferences, some expert assistants and many, many things. So, for example, for next year already on my table there is a plan for 17 events in the region including digital finance, electronic health, 5G, unmanned vehicles, some maybe artificial intelligence. So, there are many, many, many on the table but thanks to our headquarters, we are not very many in the region but in our headquarters we have a lot of competence so we involve our colleagues, they come to us, they bring us materials and they help us to organise this. And so, it's 17 events. These are different projects. For example, capacity building projects. Also, we have good projects for Internet of Things labs laboratories. It's based on St. Petersburg University, Telecommunication University and that is one more, by the way, important thing that we work a lot with academia, with universities in the region and the demand is also very high on this. So, there are numerous activities and we do as much as possible to fulfil the demands from the region and from countries, from member states, from academia. What about SMEs? Is that an important initiative? Is attention being paid to SMEs in the region? I would say this is next step for us and it is something we really have to consider because we see now that it is more and more in focus now in ITU headquarters and all in all in the world. I would say there is an area for improvement for us for sure because recently we have been working more with administrations, big companies, big operators but definitely we have to involve more SMEs and it may bring more energy and more, how to say, more life to all our activities. New blood, absolutely. And finally, do you have a message to participants here and also to our wider audience as well on behalf of ITU, looking at, say, from your regional perspective? I think I have some very specific regional message to the participants, you know. Sometimes, sometimes, these ITU gatherings is a little bit like, you know, family events when people are coming, same people doing same things, doing some decisions. So, my message, please bring this knowledge, bring these discussions to the region because people really want to hear what's going on here in plenty potential conference, for example. I myself have very good experience speaking in academia, for example, there are young people who listen and they are really surprised. Really, do you have discussions like that in ITU? People just do not know. So, that is really important. What is here, it's not like Las Vegas rules, you know. What was in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas. It's opposite. So, what happened in Dubai, we have to bring as much as possible to the regions. Everywhere, universities, academia, private sector, wherever. And the demand is very high because what is discussing here is something that people are really interested in now. Artificial intelligence, 5G, this is all very interesting and people really want to hear what's going on. So, this is my message to participants. Well, we look forward to hearing what's going on from you in the years to come. And thank you very much, Andy, for being in the studio Q&A. Thank you. Thank you.