 Welcome to the World Summit on the Information Society 2017. My guest is Dr. Nithya Khemka from the University of Cambridge. Nithya is a high-level track facilitator for the WISIS process around bridging the digital divide. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me, Charlotte. So to start with, could you explain your role as a high-level track facilitator? So the high-level track facilitator and process is a very interesting medium. It involves a range of stakeholders from academia, civil society, the private sector, and the government. I'm representing academia from the University of Cambridge. And it is essentially an unbiased, nonpartisan voice in the WISIS process that can inform the framework around WISIS. Because we're unbiased and nonpartisan, we are able to ask the difficult questions and we're able to inform the framework around which the rules of engagement happens during the WISIS conference. So, Nithya, what are the main challenges to bridge this divide? There are several challenges with bridging the digital divide and I want to talk about what our panel has come up with today. There are gaps in access and usage of ICT technology and there are several reasons that have been identified for it, including problems relating to infrastructure, adaptation rates, awareness, as well as affordability. The second issue that came up was it's very important to recognize that there are different types of divide, different barriers to entry for connectivity, including gender, economic class, lack of skills, etc. So it's also important not to pigeonhole everything into one category, but to recognize the different silos around digital divides. So you've identified the main challenges. What about the priorities and the opportunities? The priorities, I think, as our panel very correctly identified, is really building the next generation of ICT infrastructure. So what does that look? What does the future look like with artificial intelligence, etc. How do we think of the next generation of ICT infrastructure, particularly in developing societies? The other point was to reduce the cost of access. That's a very important priority, as well as to increase the digital literacy and to increase the efficacy of these tools of ICT that are offered to many parts of the world that need it. Can you give us some practical examples, some case studies? So the case studies that our panelists came up with were very interesting. They ranged from different countries from Pakistan to Costa Rica to Mexico to India. And what we found was very interesting was the need for a blended approach that involved government on the one hand that provides enabling environment. The private sector that can come in and through competition offer very competitive rates. And finally, community networks that are very, very critical to provide local access solutions. And I want to point out two interesting case studies from my panel. The first one was from India, which is doing a huge amount of work around its digital India program to increase access to the most vulnerable communities. And the second was Costa Rica, which had a very innovative scheme that was funded around the resources raised around spectrum available to private sectors and use this money to bridge the gap in places with low population density in order to provide ICT services. Dr. Nitya Kemka, thank you very much. Thank you for having me.