 We're here at the ITU Plenary Potential Reconference 2014 in Busan in the Republic of Korea and I'm very pleased to be joined by Thomas Lamunaskus, who is Head of Corporate Strategy for ITU and of course here Secretary of the Working Group of the Plenary of PP14. Thomas, welcome to the studio. Thanks for being with us today. Thank you very much, Max. It's my pleasure. Now, Connect 2020 was one of the key phrases arising from PP14 and was mentioned in many of the policy statements of member states, for instance. What is Connect 2020 exactly? So Connect 2020 is a global agenda for telecommunications and ICT development. And it's a commitment of our member states to develop the ICTs to enable sustainable development for everyone. So it's not ICTs for ICT's sake, but it's ICTs to provide education, to provide health, to provide economic development, to provide professional opportunities. And this is the commitment that was just a few minutes ago, confirmed in our planning potentially meeting at the plenary session by adopting the Connect 2020 resolution. So this is a agenda that consists of four main goals. So these four goals is growth. So our member states commit to ensure that ICTs are used more and accessible by more people. We actually, with our very measurable targets, and we're committing that by 2020 at least one and a half billion more people will come online. The second goal is inclusiveness. So we want to ensure that it's not only ICTs are generally increasingly used, but also they reached everyone. They reached developing countries as much as developed, they reached rural areas, but also they reached disadvantaged parts of the population, such as people with disabilities and other people so that they can use it well. And then the third area is sustainability. This recognizing that everything that is good also comes with some risks that applies to everything in life. So the same as ICTs. So our member states also recognize that, and recognize that we need to work on such areas as cybersecurity, so protecting the people from threats that are coming in this new world. So simply because if we don't protect them, so these ICTs, the ICT use will actually bring some threats in their day-to-day life. As well as protecting very vulnerable parts of society as our children, as well as recognizing that e-waste and use of natural resources for delivering ICTs also the areas that we need to recognize as the areas for which we need to manage as risks so that ICTs develop and sustainable. And the fourth area is innovation and partnerships as well. So this is a recognition that ICTs are such a quickly developing sector that we cannot today predict what will happen, what will happen even four or five years from now. The good example is that before when we had our previous plenipotentiary conference, such thing as iPad and tablets were not even there in the being. So that means, and now that's one of the main devices to be used. It's just a small example, but there are a lot of other examples how far the sector is moving. So our members also recognize the need that we cannot just set the agenda, but we have to have tools and means to constantly adjust and constantly adapt our frameworks so that we can further accelerate. And also that partnership element is that in order to achieve all that, we need to work with multitative partners. It's not only governments, but it's also private sector, civil society, academia and multitative partners coming together to achieve those ambitious goals. And did member states find it easy to reach agreement on this framework? Really in the plenipotentiary, they find it rather easy. However, that was part of the work that took more than one and a half years to come to this place and was also supported by work of other bodies, such as, for example, the Broadband Commission for Digital Development at the ITU and UNESCO is jointly organized. So Broadband Commission also had advocacy goals that found very good acceptance by member states, by other state holders. And one and a half years ago, when member states started developing this new strategic plan for ITU, the first question that was asked, what are we trying to achieve? It's not just what we will do with what we're trying to achieve. And in this process, member states discussed and developed very specific targets with very specific measurable indicators where we do want to see the ICTs going. And then our strategic plan as a union is how ITU as an organization contributes to that. But it's not only ITU as an organization to contribute to that, but it's also all the member states and other stakeholders should contribute to that process. So through that process, through multiple public consultations, which included all the stakeholders, private sector, civil society, through discussions in the Busan Ministerial Meeting, they just proceeded the plenipotentiary conference. And through the policy statements of member states where they reiterated their commitment to all those serious and making progress in that, it was very easy today to reach that agreement. But what seems easy today and our for equal warming support today was a part of very hard work, was dependent on very hard work on many, many people and many member states. And what are your expectations of how Connect 2020 will galvanize the entire ICT ecosystem beyond ITU? First of all, Connect 2020 is our very tangible commitment of our community, as ICT community, to sustainable development goals that are being agreed now in New York. So first of all, this is a very clear statement that is what we as ICT community as member states in ICT area want to achieve. And this is a very strong statement that we believe we'll find a very strong support also with other stakeholders. We saw that again, drawing an analogy to something I referred before with our broadband commission. We saw a lot of stakeholders drawing the agendas on a broadband commission goals and actually adopting them and committing to them. The same way we saw the member states, a lot of reiterating very specific commitments already in the policy statements, what they will do, what they will achieve, which new technologies need to be developed, how fiber optics will be developed further, wireless networks, 4G generation networks, broadband policies, and all these other things, computer emergency response teams, all the very specific things that they are committing to be done to ensure implementation of the agenda. And we see very good response also from civil society members, from other partners from private sector through that. So we believe that with this commitment, with that contribution to sustainable development goals, and of course with ITU as an organization fully internalizing this as part of our goals, as part of our strategic plan, and us committing fully to bring all the stakeholders and to help all the stakeholders to work together on that, I really hopeful that we will have a very strong partnerships in that regard. A lot of expectations, but how will this be measured? That's a very important question, because I think whenever we have a framework, whenever we have indicators, we always say, OK, this is a great, nice statement, but will it remain just an empty statement? After some years, we'll come together and say, how would you do that? The good thing, and that was a lot of thought by designing this framework came into that, that we just don't want to have targets, and not just we just have goals and indicators, but we want to be able to measure them. So that's also, and that's where ITU as an organization is a very good place to do that. First of all, we have our very important flagship measuring information society reports. And together with the ICT Development Index, that's now very well recognized as a way to measure progress in this area. So a lot of the indicators and a lot of the target data that connected to the gender is based on, is based on those indicators that ITU already collects and has available. Then at the same time, we also have great partners that we work on other areas. For example, we work with ABI research on such areas, have a security readiness, which again helps us to measure one of the targets. We work with the United Nations University on environmental targets, and we hope to further work with many other partners to ensure that it's measured not only by ITU, but it's fully, the framework is fully accepted by everyone, and we clearly know not only where we want to be, but where we stand now and how fast we progress. And then at the end of the day, we can say whether we've achieved a lot as well. Thomas, now we'll ask you, thank you very much indeed, be with us today. Thank you very much.