 Welcome to the ITU studio here at the Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 in Dubai in the United Arab Memorandum where I'm very pleased to be joining the studio today by Stephen Burrow who is CEO of Erka in Bahamas and also Chairman of Committee 5 here at the Plenipotentiary Conference. Stephen, welcome to the studio. Thank you. It's great to be here. Now, I'd like to start off by talking a little bit about Committee 5. What are the, what is Committee 5 here at the Plenipotentiary Conference and what are some of the discussions that have been taking place? You know, it's been a new experience for me. This is my first experience chairing a conference committee. It's been enlightening. Committee 5 deals with legal and policy matters. So we have before us a lot of the issues about changes to the legal rules by which the ITU functions are under which the ITU functions as well as quite a few policy issues things that go into some of the mandate just being clear that we're within the mandate that the ITU stays within its mandate. But you know, it's been a very interesting experience also because it's opened my eyes up to the ITU as a global organization made up of member states all with their own views obviously on what the ITU should be doing and shouldn't be doing and how it should focus its activities. And we're going through a period of such fast-paced change in the industries in the sectors that would concern us. You know, someone the other day commented on are we going to still be talking about voice intellects or are we going to be talking about big data and OTTs and you know, and where are we going to get into the meat of things? So you know, it has been a very interesting experience and it's very interesting to watch as we have this almost philosophical discussion as a union about what the union means to each of us and what it will mean to us tomorrow. Now there's currently considerable attention being placed on harnessing the power of ICTs of information and communication technologies as an enabler for good, for development, for the benefit of people, of communities, of nations and I wanted to ask you what's your perspective on this? Well, it's, I mean, it's undoubtable. It can't be disputed that ICTs are at the very core of every single facet of our life. Every one of the 17 SDGs, every one of them has as its core or one of the key enablers is going to be ICTs. And you know, again, as I say there in terms of how the ITU as a union related to ICTs specifically and not these other 17 things, these other things, how the ITU is a union that kind of brings everything together is going to maintain that it's value to every one of those things while not encroaching. So you know, we are, we have to be involved in everything and you know, in every country you see how people's lives are changing on a daily basis based on ICTs. I don't think there's a single day that passes by without some new application or use of ICTs sort of changing, fundamentally changing the way people live. It's an exciting and amazing time. It's sometimes a bit scary because there's, you know, there's the other side. There's the cyber security issues and privacy issues and all the negatives of any as with any technology. But I think it's clear that we, as we do our work, have to bear in mind that we are, ICT has become the glue that brings together just about every aspect of life today. Now, there's plenty of potential conferences, the first one since the world agreed on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and heading towards those. I wanted to find out a bit closer to home what's happening in the Bahamas to ensure that the sustainable, the ICTs essentially are helping to drive sustainable development. Well, it's been a very interesting few years. You know, the Bahamas has done quite a few key things, worked on. So we've created, the government of the Bahamas is just designated and is seeking to create a technology hub and a hub for technology, cybersecurity issues in Grand Bahama, which is one of our largest islands and our most sort of connected island in terms of physical ability to be connected. So it's actually an amazing project where they're encouraging investment and they're changing the way people's minds work through education and capacity building. So hoping for a lot of things there. The Bahamas, and as you talk about sustainable development, we obviously are in one of the regions of the world that is susceptible to hurricanes and natural disasters of that sort. So a few years ago, we were, two years ago, one of our islands was pretty much devastated by Hurricane Matthew and that island has now been sort of, it's going to be rebuilt, it's being rebuilt as a totally green, sustainable from the ground up island. So it's a great experiment in sustainability and the working together of different technologies. So you're dealing with energy, ICTs, it's all, and again, ICTs are the glue but we're literally rebuilding the entire infrastructure for these people's lives. It's really exciting. From a connectivity point of view, we've done quite well. The Bahamas has pretty much total LTE coverage and that's used to provide both fixed and mobile. So we've gone to the point now where broadband is not quite for every single person, but almost all because across 29 islands you will have some pockets that are difficult to cover. But it has been a real, it's a great time to be in ICTs and to watch the world adopt the SDGs and watch ICTs form a real part of it. Is 5G going to be the solution, do you think? It's going to be interesting to see the challenge with small countries as you have major investments in one technology, the time it takes to now start talking about another is tricky. So we would have just had a second 4G network built, ground up from a bottom-up approach and it's a great network. So it will be interesting to see how the next phase of investment in our network technologies goes in the Bahamas. Whether we need to jump into 5G, very often countries have to, well, you have to make the money work, right? But it will be interesting to see where we go with 5G. Certainly it's being looked at very closely by us as the regulator and some of the operators and we'll have to figure out, I think New Providence, which is our capital and which is the island where our capital Nassau is located, is very densely populated and there certainly is a lot of scope for 5G technology, especially as the government goes into things like providing broadband for everyone, going into the urban areas and redoing services again through the use of technology. We have, so there is certainly a lot of scope for 5G technologies on a small island that can very easily be converted into a complete technology island. I mean, it's not a hard thing to do. So maybe, maybe we'll get it. Now you touched upon this quite strongly, but about half the world's people are now connected to the internet. The other half is not. I wanted to ask you, what is the Bahamas doing to get everyone connected? Well, one of the key initiatives that we've been involved in actually, as I mentioned, we're quite fortunate in the Bahamas itself. I think because of decisions that have been made over a long time, that we're an archipelagic nation, 700 islands, 29 of them have people living on them, 17 are officially covered. We've always had to have technology at the core of what we do because we don't exist as a country if people can't speak to each other. So we're very well connected in the Bahamas itself, but one of the things that the Bahamas, we're quite proud of, we've for the first time been elected to ITU council at this plenipotentiary. But our goal in being elected to council was not just about, obviously we want to advance the Bahamas, obviously we want to advance our own technology, but we're a representative for the Caribbean region where there are still a lot of pockets of connectivity issues, where we still have, we're all susceptible to natural disasters, so we really want to see a lot more happen and a real focus placed on ICT's recovery after natural disasters. We've had some horrible experiences in the region and it's a critical area for us. Connectivity to remote islands is a key area for us. So part of what we're doing actually is we've invested in getting ourselves elected to ITU council. We intend to play a much stronger role here at the ITU and we intend to do that on behalf of countries in the Caribbean and small island development states in general. We hope that we can be a spokesperson. It's very difficult for a small island, a CID, to be at the ITU, to be in Geneva. We've been fortunate enough, the way we're organized in the Bahamas to be able to be here. So we think it's very important and that's a large part of what we're doing on a broader scale to really, we want to make the Bahamas a centre of excellence in ICT development in the region, but also a spokesperson for other CIDs around the world. That's great news and we obviously look forward to your participation. Finally, is there anything else that you would like to add to your message, perhaps, to not just the play of potential co-op, but to our wider audience as well? Well, you know, just generally on this concept, that we really do as a country believe that the ITU has a role to play and that that role, depending on the discussions we have at this plan apart and the discussions we may have going forward, that role can expand, it can contract and I think it would be unfortunate if it contracted. We would like to see it, obviously there's a resource thing, you can't expand it more than it makes sense to expand it, but certainly we want to make sure it remains relevant where it is and for us, as a small island development state, there are some key issues that we would always want to ensure that the ITU is able to focus on. Disasters, connectivity, persons with disabilities, our biggest issue I think is bringing everybody into the world in a secure way. Stephen Brewer, thank you very much indeed. Thank you.