Your Excellency,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the busy and vibrant city of Cairo, and to what I am sure will be an equally busy and vibrant event - ITU TELECOM AFRICA 2004.

It was ten years ago that Cairo last hosted an AFRICA event.

I participated in that event as a delegate from Japan. It was my first visit to Cairo. As a first-time visitor to Egypt, I naturally visited the Pyramids and the National Museum.

At the Tutankhamun exhibition, I was most surprised to see a number of beautiful boomerangs in the collection.

I had always been taught that Australian Aborigines invented this unique tool, which always returns to the person who threw it. I began to wonder if the boomerang had actually been invented by ancient Egyptians and then somehow spread to Australia. But how could this have happened, Australia being a continent so geographically separate from others that it even has completely different native animals and plants?

On the other hand, if both the Egyptians and the Aborigines had invented this tool, why only those two could do so?

I was fascinated by these hypotheses. Returning to Japan, I looked up "boomerang" in several encyclopaedias and travel books. All the materials I consulted, including the renowned Encyclopaedia Britannica, told me it was an Australian invention. None of the articles mentioned Egyptian boomerangs.

How did Prince Tutankhamun import them from Australia?

The origin of the Tutankhamun boomerangs remained a mystery to me.

Ten years later, as I was preparing to visit Cairo once again, the question returned to my mind.

This time I looked on the Internet using a search engine and 971 000 hits turned up on the word "boomerang". I then typed "boomerang" and "Egypt" and turned up 12,800 hits. The first websites I visited were enough to satisfy my curiosity. I discovered that boomerangs were actually used widely, not just in Australia and Africa, but also in Europe and India. They were not a unique invention of Australian Aborigines. What an ignorant man I was!

I have been privileged to have had Internet access for over ten years now. I must admit, however, that I have not been utilizing its benefits to the full. It was only quite recently that I began to fully appreciate what a useful research tool search engines are. Even once I had begun using them, their true depth did not become clear to me until I decided to find out more about the origins of the boomerang.

I have drawn on this personal experience to illustrate the potential power of ICTs. But I don't need to tell you how useful they are.

The Great Library of Alexandria served only a privileged few, whereas ICTs are relatively inexpensive, and have the potential to serve and even change the whole world if we take the right course of action now.

We must act now to extend the benefits of ICTs to those who have yet to access them and exploit their potential. This was the leitmotif during the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society. It continues to be the overriding objective as we prepare for the second phase in Tunis next year.

And because it is ITU's mandate to extend the benefits of ICTs to all of the world's inhabitants, we have taken the lead role in the organization of the Summit. We must take this opportunity now to take stock of the first phase and direct our thoughts towards ensuring that the next phase will be a truly effective tool for change.

Our Exhibition at this ITU TELECOM AFRICA event will showcase the latest technologies and services that can be utilized to extend the reach of communications in the Africa region. The Forum will bring together leading names from government and industry to debate and explore Africa's telecommunication sector. By identifying and implementing approaches that meet the needs of the African market, the advance of ICTs can continue. Over the past five years, some dramatic changes have occurred in Africa's telecommunication market. The number of mobile subscribers has increased by over 1 000%, to reach 51 million last year. Mobile telephony has extended the reach of telecommunications to cover previously untapped sections of the population. It is now firmly established as the dominant form of telephony across the region. Initiatives such as community payphones have been instrumental in extending mobile solutions into rural areas.

The expansion of communications has not been limited solely to the mobile domain. And as new technologies are being deployed across the continent, market liberalization has continued.

Now the Africa region is fast becoming one of the telecom sector's key investment opportunities. This is good news both for the future growth prospects of the region and for the industry, which is looking to the developing world to provide the new growth engine.

Nevertheless, in Africa, as in any developing region, difficulties still remain. While a new age may have dawned for Africa in telecommunication terms, there are still many who have yet to see any benefit from this. We must not forget that over half the population does not have any access to telecommunications. This means they are unable to tap into the knowledge economy of the 21st century. The danger is very real.

So, let us come together to explore the opportunities this region has to offer. And let us do our utmost to enable the benefits of the knowledge economy to permeate the entire region.

Governments, regulators and the industry itself all have a duty to ensure that telecommunication services become available to everyone. All of us - whether in government or industry - share a responsibility for shaping the future of Africa's telecommunications.

We must ensure that access to telecommunication services is reasonably priced. In this way, not just the technology, but also the services, will become available and affordable for all segments of society.

Let us now join together in helping to "Access Africa" at ITU TELECOM AFRICA 2004.

Lets Reach the Unreached to help the world Communicate.

Thank you.