 We're here at ITU Telecom World 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand and I've got the great pleasure of being in the studio today with Dr. Hamidun Ture, former ITU Secretary-General and now Executive Director of the Smart Africa Alliance. Dr. Ture, thank you very much for being with us today. It's good to be here again. Now, we've put this in here just to give you a little bit of branding here, but I want you to tell us a little bit about the Smart Africa Alliance, what it's all about, and tell us what's its vision. Well, the African continent is decided to move forward using ICT as a tool to meet not only the Millennium Development Goals, but the Sustainable Development Goals as well. And the creation of Smart Africa is a perfect timing because when we're reaching one billion citizens in Africa, we want them not to be just simple consumers, we want them to be producers. If we want them to be connected, we will need millions of handsets of millions of tablets, of smartphones, of computers, and we have to develop handsets of thousands of applications and we want Africa to be part and parcel of the production chain of all of these. The Smart Africa has been created based on the Smart Africa Manifesto that is putting the private sector first. The partnership with the private sector will be key. After putting the right policy in the regulatory environment, the private sector has to come and invest. And we have a number of private companies that are now members of the alliance, in addition to the governments, and therefore we hope to build a much greater alliance to make sure that ICT is on the top of the agenda of every nation. Now every country joining the alliance has a flagship program that it develops, therefore we don't want to leave anybody behind. We want to make sure that everyone is contributing to the best of their capabilities, and then they're sharing back the experience with other countries so that we all go fast together. So the organization is at its beginning, but there is a real momentum. I believe that the timing was simply perfect. In terms of collaboration within Smart Africa, what are the challenges and what are the benefits? Some of the key challenges are first to put the ICT policy framework in place to be able to attract industry, because we know the industry is ready, we know the need is there. There are many countries who believe in it now. And the next challenge after that is to put in place the right capacity building and education programs that will train the people at the right time. What we want to achieve here is job creation. We have a large population of youth, we have over 300 million young people. Most of them are finishing university, and we want to make sure that they're not going to cross the Mediterranean by boats. We want them to stay in Africa and work. Therefore in order to prepare them to be developing applications, services that they can use home and work and produce and really not be attempted by a necessary immigration. We believe that planning gives an opportunity because ICT is a cross cutting industry. It has an impact for agriculture, commerce, transport or smart cities. Whatever part of the industry you take for the development, ICT will have a key role in it. And our young people who believe that they are very innovative is a matter of finding the right opportunity to be given to them so that they can really express themselves, be competitive on the world market as well, and really contribute to the development of the continent. Now, Smart Africa was founded in Rwanda, which has a very active tech, SME and entrepreneur culture. I wanted to ask you what factors do you think have contributed in making it successful and how has government policies supported the SMEs there? Rwanda is probably one of the most forward looking countries in the world, actually, in terms of putting the right policy framework to attract the industry and to attract small and major enterprises. I'll give you an example. When I arrived on January 7 in Kigali, we were creating this company from scratch and it took me less than six hours to be in an office and operational. It takes today three to five hours to create a company in Rwanda. I think that's one of the number one in the world and therefore the credit should be given to the leadership. The President Kagame, who is the chairman of the Board of Smart Africa, is injecting that style in the work of Smart Africa to make sure that we are business oriented. Creating opportunity for young entrepreneurs. There is a small laboratory in Rwanda called KELAB that is an incubator for young entrepreneurs. They say incubator for new applications and new services and it's giving the right opportunity. They are creating a special investment bank to help them. They are finding champions and advocates who would be training them. They are finding companies that will be sponsoring those young people from scratch. I mean, those are types of examples that really need to be encouraged. I'm very pleased that the ITU, the ITU Secretary General Ms. Aho has put the SMEs at the top of his agenda. It's the right approach because more than half of the young people who are employed are employed by SMEs and therefore we need to give them the right opportunity to blossom. There are a few challenges. First, you have to have the right policy and the right environment. Second, the risk-taking culture for SMEs is also a really important factor, especially it's a factor that is a problem in many countries in Africa. Some by nature don't want to take risks because they are afraid of failure and we need to change that mindset. I mean, success comes out of multiple failures and some countries understood that and they are really succeeding. Once you break that barrier of taking risks, therefore you need to then find the right financing model to help support them. Most of the time they don't need a very large investment but any investment comes out of some risk and therefore you need to find that and some countries are putting that in the structure in place for that. If you had to identify a single factor, what would that be? Growth of digital economy is all based on partnership, partnership, government and private sector. I mean, the PPP model is very important, especially when governments are at the stage of takeoff, they need to set the right policy in the regulatory framework. Now once that their private sector has to come in, so the two have to work together and you need to overcome some of the myth around Africa, there's a lot of talk about corruption. There is corruption everywhere in the world, of course you cannot take off with corruption but there are many leaders in the continent who are making sure that they do have a clean environment where people can operate and I'm inviting all the investors to come in and see in those countries where it works, then they can work and also countries will follow. Therefore I think that the opportunity is there and I am very confident that Africa is at the perfect time for its new development using ICT. This fourth industrial revolution will not miss that. I can assure you that there is a confidence, not only the time is ripe because we have one billion citizens, one billion consumers. Now if you put the right regulatory and policy environment there, investment will flow and the message has been clear, come and invest in Africa and make profits out of it. There's nothing wrong with making profits, it's not a crime. And I know when private sector is making profits they will invest and they will not take away the profit, they will reinvest it and make more profits, that's the rules of the game. And we know that you cannot be rich with your own money, you can only be rich with other people's money. So we are inviting everyone to come and work with us in a win-win model so that we can really work together. Now I want to make sure that in the process we'll have a conceived in Africa model, we'll have a Made in Africa concept that will enable us to also be part of the manufacturing chain and the conceptual chain so that our young people be innovative. We're going to help them in ensuring that they have also the right intellectual property rights and training in that model and the protection in that so that they can really start sharing information and still benefit from their discoveries or their inventions and their innovations. Why it's important and what is it of value nowadays to be attending ITU Telecom? Well I'm very happy to see ITU Telecom world growing bigger and bigger every year. It shows the importance of ITU, it shows the importance of industry ITU is dealing with bringing the telecommunications sector, the service providers and also even the over the top players who are now joining forces because there was a long battle between the two communities. Now there's a clear understanding that the two communities need to work together and in a win-win mode and that's really very pleasant. I'm pleased to see it's an opportunity also to see the many ministers and policy makers who come here with industry leaders. Therefore it is a perfect environment to share ideas and strategies on how to move forward, how to develop this industry that is now the key tool for all the sectors of the industry. We're talking about sustainable development goals, it will never happen without ICT and everyone understand that and the partnership, the sharing of our information, ITU is a really deep place to come and share information. Well Dr. Hammerdon, sorry, thank you very much for taking the time to come and talk to us in the studio today, we very much appreciate it and we wish you all the very best in South Africa.