 Welcome to the World Summit on the Information Society 2017. I am delighted to be joined by Mr. Thomas Schneider, Ambassador and Director of International Affairs at the Swiss Federal Office of Communication, OFCOM. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you and first of all, of course, I'd like to welcome everybody in Geneva, in Switzerland, which is like every year the host through the ITU and its partners of the WISIS Forum. So happy that so many people have turned up. So since you are hosting the summit, do you have a particular message this year for the participants? Well, the message is basically the same procedure as every year, but this year it's special. So it's first of all, inviting people to leave their desks, break their silos, get out of their offices, get together with people that they normally do not meet, exchange their experience, learn from each other, detect commonalities in fields that may be quite different, whether it's somebody that is actually working in a banking sector but has to deal with data and internet issues and governance issues that meet somebody that is in the humanitarian fieldwork, but also has issues with data, with the internet, with connectivity, with privacy, with trust. So this is, I think, is a good platform for people to meet and learn from people that they normally don't so that they make new experiences or new insights to problems that they may think that they are the only ones that have it, but actually somebody else has more or less the same problem and has already found the solution. So this is, we think, a very good platform for people from all over the world, from all stakeholders to meet, get together, learn from each other and then go home with a broader horizon, like, by the way, the IGF that we are hosting this year, as well the UN Internet Governance Forum, which is another very important UN-led event that will be on 18 to 21 December, and we're also very happy to host the UN IGF, which will be at the Palais des Nations here in Geneva. So what role do you think ICTs can play in promoting sustainable development goals? We have looked at them together with our experts on development in the administration and a number of NGOs in Switzerland and others, and actually you find hooks on every of the 17 SDGs and on many of these SAP targets, where it's not necessary to use ICTs, but you probably get to achieve the goal quicker or more efficient if you use ICTs. So I won't go into details, because then I wouldn't stop anymore, but of course things like smart cities or where you have to manage traffic, you have to manage food chains and so on and so forth, the whole climate, agriculture, everything basically that you find under these 17 SDGs would benefit from using ICTs in a coordinated way as part of those strategies that are built around the 2030 agenda goals. So what efforts can be made actually to link together SDGs and the WISIs at the UN level? We have actually realized that although it's the same governments and sometimes even the same IGOs that work together as part of the WISIs process that has started here in Geneva in 2003, as well as in the Millennium Development Goals process, which has then been developed into the SDGs, that people, it's slowly starting, but people have not been aware of the benefits and opportunities that ICTs, internet applications, the use of data and up to artificial intelligence in the end offer to working on development issues. And we have had a hard time on our country, on national level, but also internationally to actually try and link these processes so that in particular those who work in the field who use tools like microfinancing tools, communication via mobile on market prices for agricultural goods or what have you, that they actually in a structured way realize the opportunities, the efficiency gains, the benefits that this work can get through ICTs, but this is something that they are not normally experts, while as those who deal with ICTs with internet applications are experts on the applications, but they normally don't necessarily know what actually they can be used for in a concrete development project. And bringing these two logics or fields together has proven and it's happening more and more in the past months and years, has proven to be something that is very efficient and also thanks to the ITU and those that are working around the WISIs structure and the WISIs forum, a lot of capacity building and awareness raising has been undertaken and it's now becoming more or less obvious to almost everybody that actually this makes sense to use ICTs for achieving the SDGs. Now, since Switzerland is a leading player in ICT already, can you give us some specific examples of how you link ICT and SDGs in the country? First of all, I think it's necessary to link this on a strategy level. So we have a strategy that is called Digital Switzerland for the national development of Switzerland as a modern digital society, digital economy. And then we have plans for developing the Swiss agricultural system or the Swiss industry or let's say different health system, different aspects in life and those need to be in line. That means those who normally, this is all distributed among governmental offices that also do not necessarily talk to each other every day, but you need to bring them together, they need to realize that every strategy that is being done and there are dozens and hundreds, sometimes even strategies per country and then globally on different issues, they need to realize where are the synergies, what should they do and so that these strategies actually work hand in hand. And the same goes for the UN or for the global level, that a strategy on how to achieve sustainable development goals needs to be linked with the national infrastructure strategy with the national strategy for fighting cybercrime. All these things need to be connected because otherwise you may get confusing results, the actors don't know with whom they should cooperate and what we do for instance in Switzerland, we are part of those who undertake a 2030 agenda baseline assessment currently, which will present to the UN at the latest stage about where we are with achieving the 17 development goals and the 169 or how many there are sub targets on national level but also in global cooperation and we have been called by a development agency who is leading this process, called into this process to tell them where on all these goals that we as experts on internet and digitization from a rather technical or market point of view, where we think the impact of digitization would be significant on all of these goals. So we went through all of these goals and made some some proposed like where should they as leading agency take digitization into account what would be partners on national level and international level so that they get the missing element in the puzzle from us and we will cooperate much closer because of that exercise also in the future to share the work that we are doing where we are supporting ITU in their development fields whereas they support other work with other institutions so that we get this together so that as I said the experts in development get to know from experts in ICTs in internet applications how they can use it and the other way around those who deal with internet that they get an idea of who they could share it with so that they can actually use it and we are doing this more and more in this country in Switzerland. So it's all about partnerships isn't it? It's all about listening to each other learning from each other and then engaging in constructive corporations, yes. Mrs. Thomas Schneider, Ambassador and Director of International Affairs at OFCOM thank you very much. You're welcome.