 Your Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, delegates and participants. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. I am deeply honoured to chair the fourth Global Standards Symposium here in Geneva. I welcome all those who are joining us at this very timely event in our joint efforts to strengthen global cooperation, to accelerate the digital transformation and to deliver on our sustainable development goals. But of course the irony is not lost on me. We are comfortably gathered here in a free, beautiful and peaceful Geneva to imagine ways of building a sustainable and inclusive future. Meanwhile, not far from us, so many others are facing death and destruction. Fair and uncertainty. People are running away from homes and bullets, and their dreams over free, beautiful and peaceful Ukraine are being trampled into the ground. Thus, permit me to join the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in asking to save this generation from war. We need peace. Peace is a foundation of our future. Peace is a foundation of sustainable development. What use is of sustainable development as a precious little to sustain for precious no one? In Estonia we recently celebrated the 25th birthday of our Taigali program, an initiative to digitalise our national education. The Taigali program brought connectivity into our schools and gave impetus for the modernisation of my country. We built a digital society that is inclusive and open. A digital society based on transparency, trust and human centric values. Today, 99% of our public services are accessible online 24-7. Nearly everyone has a digital identity, and we even share cross-border services with our dear friends in Finland, just a few miles north of us. Now, 25 years later, the world is facing another digital leap. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the utility of innovative digital tools. Work, communication, shopping, entertainment and much more is now done online. Initiatives that had been planned for years were implemented within months. Yet a lot has changed within these 25 years. It is evident that we as people, businesses, governments and countries share similar problems and that our solutions to these problems are similar too. We do not need to keep reinventing the wheel when it comes to online education and distance learning or telemedicine and remote healthcare or payment delivery or digital authentication and signatures. Digital governance globally has mature to a point where it can be shared across borders. This relies on us harmonizing the principles of taxonomy, promoting open and standard-based reusability and sharing our know-how and capacity. Here, the UN Secretary General's roadmap for digital cooperation and the Digital Public Code Alliance come at a critical point. In other initiative of ITU, the GIZ Dial and Estonia by the name of Gavstak also collects and develops open-source digital governance building blocks that are adjustable, scalable and accessible to everyone. As we grow so accustomed to the opportunities that digital technologies bring to our societies and economy, we also face the risks and challenges associated with the cross-border use of digital technologies and the interdependencies these create. Violations of privacy, hackings and disinformation are only a few examples of the things that hinder our experiences in the virtual world. Malicious cyber operations have increased targeting critical infrastructure, public key services, the banking system and the media. And digital technologies are also being used for waging war. The international order is under duress and needs global action. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings me to today's symposium and the opportunity every one of us has in framing the international standards in a way that bolsters the digital transformation and supports sustainable development. I am confident that our discussions and subsequent conclusions around the eight pillars of the symposium will take us closer to promoting and providing trusted connectivity to bridging the digital divide, to fostering sustainable growth, to fostering smart, secure and open societies, to rebuilding the global community, to shielding vulnerable populations and above all to building peace. I commend AITUS Foresight in identifying the symposium main theme and the eight key pillars for today's discussions. I also would like to extend my gratitude to ITU for giving me the honour of serving as the chairman of this event. A dedicated steering committee has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make today's symposium possible. I want to thank the 25 members of the steering committee and more than 50 speakers, moderators and keynotes for their support in drafting these conclusions. These conclusions will contain a set of recommendations that will be forwarded to the World Telecommunication Standards Assembly for its consideration. I sincerely hope that these conclusions will serve as a call to action for ITU members to take the next step forward for sustainable digital transformation. In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I call on all of you gathered here today to combine our efforts to forge a future that is more free, prosperous, inclusive, sustainable and peaceful. Thank you very much.