 Next to me I'm very pleased to have one of the people who's been involved with Wiesis right from the start representing Tunisia and it is now 2014 but back in 2005 there was the Tunis declaration and thank you for joining us Mr. Taufik Jalassi, Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and ICT so your country very important to this whole process and you're also a prize winner as well so congratulations. Thank you very much and thank you for inviting me you are right in saying that Tunisia was very much involved from the very start back in 2005 I was honored to be part of the official Tunisian delegation at that event and you mentioned the price that we are getting this morning here in Geneva granted by the ITU we are honored to receive this price it's a recognition of a major event that we put in place subsequent to the November 2005 event and the recognition goes to us hosting annually a major forum called ICT for all which have been held since 2005 on different topics different themes every year with almost 2,000 people taking part of it annually coming from private sector CEOs of large companies worldwide but also public sector ministers 20 30 of them from different countries and civil society representatives so we believe that this ICT for all international forum has advanced ICT topics in the broader societal and also economic context. The United Nations has publicly thanked Tunisia for its role in the beginnings the setting up of the Oasis process. Why did Tunisia get involved and why did Tunisia think it was so important to to be there in 2005? Actually if I recall correctly the idea came up back in 1998 when Tunisia first suggested to the United Nations holding a World Summit on the information society clearly since the late 90s we saw the emergence of computers of digital content affecting society at large and it was that vision then that led Tunisia to suggest that the United Nations bring key decision makers together for such an event that was the background to it. In Tunisia we do believe in ICT as a major enabler for socioeconomic development the government they belong to firmly believes in that our Prime Minister is a strong supporter of pushing ICT across all sectors of society of the economy with the aim of turning Tunisia hopefully into a major ICT hub for the Maghreb for the Minna region for sub Saharan Africa. We believe that we can make it hopefully in the coming years internationally speaking but also making Tunisia an enabler to create the jobs to push innovation to move to the digital economy whether it is tourism health education commerce and other sectors of course of the economy. There have been of course big political and societal changes in Tunisia since 2005 but is the focus still the same? I would say the focus has even increased I mentioned the new government that came to power in this past January it's called a government of technocrats half of its members coming from private sector internationally like myself I spent the last 35 years between USA and Europe our Prime Minister spent 23 years working in the private sector in Europe so we bring in best practices from the international scene but also deep knowledge of of good you know processes and how to create value that hopefully will be lasting so it is the mix of my colleagues from within Tunisia my colleagues from outside of Tunisia it's us together that we want really to make Tunisia not only a major Arab Spring country but as our Prime Minister calls it a democracy startup it's a startup it's new on its democratic path but it's a democracy that we are determined to make it succeed and recognized as a major success story on a world stage and ICT is one of the pillars in that transformation that you want for our society in Tunisia and for our national economy