 Thank you very much, Alisa, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished delegates, a very good morning to you all. It's really a pleasure to see you all here this morning, so in the first place I thank you for coming to join in this conversation, which we have very much been looking forward to and I hope you also. And I thank all of our Member States for their encouragement over the course of the past year for us to engage in this extremely important field. Now, what are we trying to do if I may make a few general remarks? What are we trying to do here? Well, look, I think we are really trying to take cognizance of a number of quite important things that we are all able to observe. I have at least seven of them, but I'm going to mention them very briefly. First of all, we can all see that a relatively new, I think it's probably incorrect to say new, but a relatively new general purpose technology is unfolding across the economy and society and it is having already a profound impact and it will, we all believe, have an extraordinarily profound impact on us in the future. So that we can all see. I think that's number one. Number two, we see all of us an increasing range of commercial applications deploying artificial intelligence in society and in the economy and we see a lot of investment now channeling on the part of major corporations into artificial intelligence. I think number three, when we look across the world, we see a very uneven capacity in this field and this is something that as an international organization we really do need to take cognizance of. There are clear leaders and there are trailers and we need to be aware that of course there is a major technological gap in the world and this new general purpose technology risks exacerbating that gap. Number four, I would say we can all observe also that artificial intelligence is engaging widespread media attention and widespread public attention and that attention I think is sometimes a matter of wonder. It's sometimes a matter of deep anxiety and concern and we do need to take cognizance also of this generalized attention on the part of public or the public on this new area. Then I would say we also need to note that governments around the world are starting to engage or have engaged in respect of artificial intelligence. We see that that engagement is increasingly deep horizontally across the governments but also in the growing number of governments that are getting engaged in this area. I think in terms of government engagement I would say there are probably roughly three types of engagement that we're seeing on the part of governments and maybe a government has all three but first of all there is the engagement on the part of strategic thinkers within government in the positioning of industrial and or post-industrial economic strategy. So we are all aware of a number of strategy papers that have been put out by a number of governments around the world in this particular area. Secondly I'd say we're seeing an increasing number of governments deploy policies in respect of and strategies in respect of artificial intelligence. For example opening up government data for commercial enterprises and applications. So that's another thing that we can see and then number three in the third place I think we see the commencement of quote regulatory unquote initiatives. So that is I think different. You have strategy you have how can government be useful on support commercial applications in AI and number three we're going to regulate this in one way or another and that we see commencing now. So that I think is is quite apparent. Now let me I've got two other general propositions and the next is that I think it is a general purpose technology. We see that artificial intelligence is of course raising a very broad and multi-disiplinary range of policy questions. There are many disciplines involved in this. I won't go through them we'll have the opportunity and you'll have the opportunity to discuss them in the course of the day. I simply would note that one of those questions is property and intellectual property by no means the only one but it is one of the questions in this broad range of policy challenges and then lastly let's note given where we are that it is an international question or a question that has international dimensions. And ultimately I think we're in a situation in which technical interoperability is going to depend on regulatory interoperability and if we see regulatory initiatives going in all sorts of directions we're going to find ourselves in a difficult position technically. So the flows of data the different regulatory initiatives that may be taken or are being taken the networks the value chains are all telling us that this is very much an international question or at least of course it's a national question but also it also has an international dimension. So on the basis of all of that we have been as an organization trying to engage in this field of artificial intelligence or commencing an engagement. So what have we done very very briefly as you know we published a I think a fairly major report earlier this year at the beginning of this year landscaping scientific publications and patent applications in the field of artificial intelligence since the beginning of artificial intelligence in the 1950s. That was simply providing empirical data for a policy discussion. Secondly we have been developing tools artificial intelligence applications. We will be showcasing them later on in the day so I won't go into them here but we have been developing these for the purpose of the administration of intellectual property that's our mandate of course. Thirdly we've been trying to participate widely with member states. First of all we have organized with the UK intellectual property office and an event conference on decoding IP. We will be organizing with the copyright office the United States of America early next year an event on copyright and artificial intelligence. We've been involved with the authorities in Dubai with various events on artificial intelligence where they're taking a leadership role and we've been very much involved with our sisters across the road the international telecommunications union in the AI for good summits. So we see a growing demand on the part of our own member states for engagement of this organization in the field. So now I come to finish these remarks and just to say that that's the general setting that we see for this organization the things that we must take note of and I hope today this is a step moving towards a more serious engagement on the part of the organization in the field of artificial intelligence. Of course I wouldn't suggest that our engagement has not been serious but moving up one level slightly now and it's an opportunity very much for the exchange of experience and knowledge and bringing together those who are involved in this in the enterprise sector and in the government sector throughout the world from the different perspectives and I really thank you all again for coming and we're looking forward to the conversation today.