Welcome to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where I'm very pleased to be joining the studio this afternoon by Yorne Koryovuki who is regional director of the ITU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. Yorne, welcome to the studio. Thank you, Max. Now I'd like to start off by talking to you a little bit about the theme for this year's Plenipotentiary Conference is connecting the world together. How has the Asia and the Pacific region been making strides to get everyone connected over the last four years since the last Plenipotentiary Conference? Yeah, thank you, Max. When you look at, firstly, I'll start with the region. We have quite a diverse region, you know, beginning with less developed countries on one end of the spectrum and small island developing states right on the other end and in the middle, we have countries that are quite well developed. So you can see that we have quite a challenge in addressing the region as a whole. But in looking at the last four years and what we've been trying to do as you would have known that since the last Plenipot 2014, we know that we were looking at, well, even the plan before that was broadband for all. Now that we've got that in place or the focus was on that, we've started to build out infrastructure and addressing the services that would go over that infrastructure. And now, with all of that again in place, we're looking at connecting the whole world. So in the last four years, as you know, that the regional offices work to the regional needs teams that we have. So we had five regional needs teams and basically addressing specialized needs to those developing countries, the landlock developing countries, small island developing states as well, including those that are floating out there in the Pacific. And most of the assistance that we've provided have gone towards this. But of course, we were addressing, harnessing the benefits of ICTs for the benefits of the member states. And this encompasses quite a wide spectrum again for the assistance that we provide within the region. A lot of work has gone in addressing, well, again, it'll just stick to the five regional needs teams, you know, policy and regulation, which is an important issue. While technology is transforming, it's evolving policy and regulation needs to go with that. In addition to that, we're also addressing making sure that the networks are secure and resilient. One of the major things that affects the region is emergency telecommunications. So in the last four years, our focus was on that. And it was one of the key initiatives that we had as well. So based on these five initiatives, this is what our work was founded on and the things that we've been doing with the member states. One of the keys I think I will go back on is policy and regulation. And I mentioned that technology is evolving very quickly. And the countries need to be catching up. Policy and regulation needs to keep up to that as well. And I think in most situations you'll find regulation is trying to catch up. We've addressed within the region policies that member states have, their ICT policy, broadband policies, which in some cases have been quite outdated and that have been addressed as well. In some instances, there were policies that have been put in place but needed to be reviewed as well. This is an ongoing activity that the regional office runs through. And again, there's a raft of a whole lot of activities that we're engaging on an annual basis. You know, we gather the parties of the countries, rationalise the countries, what is specific to each one, what is common amongst the countries and we address them along those lines as well. So this is the way that we've been working in the last four years. We will continue to do this as the new cycle embarks upon us now as we look forward to the next four. Let's talk about the new cycle. What are your plans for the next few years in the region? Well, you know, again our work is again founded on the regional initiatives. Out of WTDC 2017, we now have a new set of five regional initiatives. But when we look at the new set of regional initiatives, you can see the similarities between the old and the new, which shows that countries still require specific assistances in these areas, which is the very specialised assistances to the least developing countries, the landlocked, the small island developing countries. And they still require very specialised specific assistances, you know, to keep their development going and progressing as well. And again, we are beginning to talk about digital transformation. This is, again, structured into two of our regional initiatives. And the countries are asking through the initiatives that we address the harnessing of ICTs for the development of digital transformation, addressing digital transformation. And of course, digital infrastructure as well that goes together with it. And then we find that we still need policy and regulation as one of our regional initiatives and secure and resilient networks. These five are still, although addressing different areas now, but still key to the region as we are looking at the next four. What about events? What events are coming up? For next year, okay, you know, we have our global events, but coming down to the region, first up is we have our regional development forum. This is key to our planning process. Within the office itself, whilst we have our own planning, we drag this or we factor this into the regional development forum. Why? Because the regional development forum looks at our five regionalities. What the countries have prioritized, what they need to do, how we can engage with sector members and also partners as well that will help us work with the member states in addressing their very specialized requirements. So the regional development forum, what is important to the region as well is dealing with the regulators. So we have an event that's specifically tailored for the regulators because we know that regulation is important to the member states and they need to address regulation as we go along. So we have a regulators round table where we bring all the regulators from the region and sit them over two days and then we threshold all the issues that are related to regulation. And at the back of that, we also have an international training program where we bring in officials so that we can talk about the regulation, talk about the development and what is required that we all bring the two together. And the global symposium for regulators as well is happening in Vanuatu as well. That's correct. The global regulatory symposium is in our region this year and in Vanuatu I think the member states will get to experience the Pacific but more importantly how difficult it is to get into the Pacific. You know when you look at the Pacific they are just dots floating in the ocean. It's a good experience to see what our small island developing states go through just to experience what it is that they prioritize and to hear from them. Of course you know as the regulators gather in there to talk about globally what regulation should be addressed. I think it's a good experience to look at perspectives from a small island developing states. In terms of a message, do you have a message for participants here at the Plenty Potentiary and of course a wider audience as well on behalf of ITU in your region? Yes I think this is a four-year event where we come in together to set the stage for our work in the next four years. It is very important to realize and know that the things we do here agreed here and in those that the PP you know sets the scene for our work. And globally it's important that we keep our attention on what is required to make sure that you know we're connecting the world. We're connecting the dots right now but on the global perspective we need to bring this together to ensure that we reach the unreached, bank the unbanked and of course keep everyone connected. We look forward to connecting the dots with you again in the future and hopefully catching up with you again in that dot in the ocean in Vanuatu too if not before. Thank you very much Max I'm sure we'll keep our dots connected. Thank you very much. Cheers.