Ambassador Poll,
Secretary-General Gomez de Olea,
Student delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,

As I said just a few minutes ago during the FerMUN opening ceremony, we at ITU are delighted to welcome this event, which embodies so many of the values that ITU and the UN system stand for.

Your presence here testifies to the fact that you are among the brightest and most talented students of your generation.

It testifies to your commitment to personally involve yourselves in the burning issues that are reshaping today’s world, and all of our futures.

And it also testifies to your belief in a shared international approach to finding solutions that work for all people, whichever country they live in, and whatever their circumstances.

The students and teachers of the Ferney Lycée International are to be applauded in creating the world’s first fully bilingual Model UN event, and I hope other chapters of the Model UN programme will follow your lead.

As Secretary-General of ITU, I am delighted that you have chosen ‘ICTs as the way forward in development, peace, and prosperity’ as your conference theme.

No matter what the issue, technology has a key role to play, and this will be increasingly the case as our level of connectedness increases in the years to come. Access to the power of ICTs brings many benefits – from access to e-health and e-learning – but also brings challenges, such as cybersecurity and the need to ensure data privacy.

I am very much looking forward to hearing how you deal with these issues over the coming two days, and ITU will be looking to your lead as we define the agenda for a very important youth event that we will be hosting in partnership with the Republic of Costa Rica this coming September.

I will let Ambassador Poll speak more about that; for now, let me just wish all students a very successful FerMUN conference.

Thank you.