 Hi and welcome to ITU Telecom World 2014 in Doha in the state of Qatar and I'm very pleased to be joined by Fred Matianghi who is Minister of the Ministry of Information Communication Technology for Kenya. Mr Matianghi, thank you very much for being with us today. Thank you for having me. Minister, I'd like to start off by asking you, the central theme here at ITU Telecom World 2014 is future in focus. What developments in technology policy or business do you see as key to the near future? One of course the greatest thing about the future is we're in the air of big data and the management, governance, business, eventually all aspects of our lives are going to be driven by data and how we manage data as we go forward. So the development of various platforms on which we manage, manipulate and use big data to organize ourselves is critical and is going to be very critical as we go forward. That's why it is absolutely inconceivable to think about development post 2015 without looking at how ICTs will play a role in that framework. And what is Kenya's priority in that future? Broadband, ensuring that we move and enhance broadband footprint across the country because that is how we can achieve inclusion. That's how we can achieve participation and that's how we can afford our people access and ensure that our people come into the global community of communication as a city. So we're working together across the board, private sector players, we in government through policy and legislation to ensure that we enhance the broadband footprint in our country. By broadband do you mean mobile or fixed? Both because in many countries in Africa and ours is not an exception. There is necessity at the moment because of various infrastructural development to ensure that we work on enhancing both fixed and mobile broadband. But going into the future because of the way technology is going, whether we are supporting shared infrastructure frameworks, mobile broadband is going to be faster, cheaper to deploy and most importantly of course highly accessible. So we may have a bias towards mobile broadband but we are also doing fixed as it were because we are having several programs right now that are working towards investing in fixed broadband. And how is Kenya, what steps is Kenya taking in enabling its people to benefit from developments in technology? Investing heavily in infrastructure development, ICT infrastructure development, fast through policy mainstreaming ICTs and ensuring that ICT is mainstreamed in online infrastructure development. Through legislation also identifying ICT as a critical infrastructure, we are writing a law in Kenya, we are calling the critical infrastructure and utilities bill which will make all ICT infrastructure critical and we can protect it as a critical installation or critical aspect of our security and our economic development. And in addition to the government investing resources, we are developing frameworks through which we work with private sector players to ensure that sufficient resources go into building infrastructure across the board so that we can enhance inclusion and enhance access and of course affordability by our people. Now I know there has been talk here of smart Africa, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that and your involvement in it. We've come together right now about nine countries in the continent. We are walking from this philosophy. It is very good for each of us as a country individually to develop and enhance our ICT status. But it's better to organize ourselves according to regions across Africa. But it's best to connect the continent so that we are all connected as it were. So that it's not good enough for Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda or South Sudan or South Africa to achieve a certain level of ICT development because we must live in a community that is connected across the board. So partly as a way of supporting ITU framework of Connect 2020, we want to ensure that we connect to the whole continent and smart Africa is looking at that. And really the focus is policy, capacity building and infrastructure development. Really, in terms of when you look at the smart Africa manifesto, the five pillars can be summarized all in the three words that I've talked about, policy, infrastructure and of course capacity for our people. So we're working together to share experiences, compare notes and share resources that we have across the continent, to be able that we achieve connectivity in the continent and we build the capacity and uplift some of our countries on the continent that may not be at the level at which some of the others are. Because ICT is going to be a critical equalizer in enhancing development. So we are no longer talking about poverty alleviation. We are talking about enhancing connectivity as a way of building a vibrant communication community on the continent and smart Africa is a core focus of mobilization for this. Now, I know there's been a lot of great conversations here over the last few days. I wanted to find out if you've got a message to impart to the people who are here, to the participants here at ITU Telecom World, but also the people who are watching back in their offices and at home. Very simple. One, it's inconceivable for us to talk about world development of any kind without focusing on ICTs. So I think it's not just a question of even mainstreaming ICTs in all aspects of our planning, but it's looking at ICTs as the critical enabler to all forms of development across the board. So all of us, all government and private sector players, must now have a conversation on how we build sustainable partnerships to enhance the development of ICTs across the board. There is no single original governance framework that will be able to do this on their own. It must be a collective effort that brings together private and public players to be able to achieve this. And we are willing to play our part as a country and our colleagues on the region and of course most importantly as a family on the continent of Africa to ensure that we bring our people together. The next decade we redefine how we live and what will actually do that definition is ICT and then we will have to live in communities that have been reconstructed, re-conceptualized, re-ordered and reorganized thanks to the ICTs and how we deploy ICTs is critical to our development. It's no longer a question of discussing ICTs as an addition to the agenda for the global community, but it should be the first agenda for the global community as we move forward because it pervades all sectors especially when you look at the three criticals you know health, education and even economics. The development of the digital economy is critical to the development of the world. I understand the attendant challenges to it fine but I think ICT has now become too important to be discussed in isolation of other aspects of world development. Now this event ITU telecom world 2014 is a very much a key event in ITU's calendar. I know you're no stranger to ITU events I wanted to ask you what is the value for you in attending such events? I love this event for this symbol reason it's an opportunity to meet global partners and in the ICT sector we talk about global partners to share experiences that there are countries and governments that have deployed better that have achieved more that have registered greater for example broadband penetration. These events provide an opportunity for us to learn to share experiences and sometimes to actually share solutions to some of the challenges that we may be facing on the continent and every time we attend this event we move closer to the goal of global connectivity because we realize where the gaps are and we develop strategies on how to bridge those gaps. So this event are really important I mean it's a one-stop shop for all players and it's an all- inclusive framework that facilitates our move towards our desired goals of achieving global connectivity. Finally very briefly a question we've been asking everybody who's been coming into the studio is what key technological innovation do you see will be make the most difference so for the next five or ten years? Mobile broadband in my view our lives and all aspects of you know how we live today and including economic transactions are going to be transformed by mobile broadband whether it is through medicine provision of education provision of public sector services they are all going to be affected by mobile broadband and I keep saying that in my view and for us as a country in Kenya our three objectives are broadband broadband because that is the highway to inclusivity that is the highway to participation in economic development that is the highway to knowledge sharing and dissemination and that is the super highway to a knowledge-based economy as we move forward you know to the next decade or so. So the opportunities that mobile broadband will provide for innovation for example development of applications job creation we are going to live in the era of world-less classrooms thanks to mobile broadband and every aspect of our life will be configured school will be reconfigured the practice of medicine will be configured the process of governance will be configured thanks to mobile broadband that's what I think. Minister Matiangi thank you very much for showing these wonderful insights with us and we look forward to catching up with you soon. Thank you so much for the opportunity and all the best. Thank you. Thank you so much.