Dr. Garif Yalak, Executive Board Member, Cisco Switzerland
Distinguished colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to the 2026 Global Digital Transformation Centres Workshop and the Annual Meeting of the ITU Academy Training Centres.
These two important gatherings were held simultaneously for the first time last year in Santo Domingo and I would like to reiterate my sincere appreciation to the Community Technology Centers, the DTC in the Dominican Republic, for graciously hosting us in 2025.
This year, I am happy to welcome you all to Geneva not only representatives of the ATCs and DTCs but also, our partners, Cisco, ST Foundation, HP and the Digital Skills Factory.
Thank you for being here.
Last November at the World Telecommunication Development Conference, we adopted the Baku Declaration and Action Plan which emphasizes the need to continue investing in capacity building and digital skills development.
It is in this context that the ATC programme and the DTC Initiative will both continue to play a crucial role in our work.
I am pleased to note that more than 714,000 course participants have been trained since the launch of the DTC Initiative in 2019, 52% of them female.
All these achievements are thanks to the unwavering support of our DTC Initiative partners including Norway through the ITU-funded Project on “Boosting digital skills through Digital Transformation Centres”.
Another important milestone is the expansion of the DTC network as we welcomed the Ministry of Public Administration and Artificial Intelligence as one of the DTCs in Trinidad and Tobago, the Digital Bridge Institute in Nigeria, as well as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission in Malaysia.
Meanwhile, the ATC programme has proven to be instrumental in building knowledge and skills among ICT professionals and enabling them to contribute and fully participate in digital transformation at a time when emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, are fundamentally reshaping the way we work and the way we live.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Impactful training is the core priority of the ATC programme.
Since the launch of the programme in 2023, over 160 courses have been delivered by the ATCs and, I am happy to say that this year, we will be reaching a milestone of 5,000 certified learners.
All courses are delivered through the ITU Academy platform, which continues to experience significant growth reaching a total number of 100,000 users from across the regions. Of these, 40% were female and 71% from developing countries.
The users are professionals from ministries, regulators, telecom operators and academia bringing even broader impact.
Ladies and gentlemen, this week’s meetings are an opportunity to look back on those successes and to look forward to further achievements.
We received very positive feedback following last year’s meetings particularly with regards to the joint ATC-DTC sessions.
The agenda for this year’s meetings will allow each group to unpack and discuss specific issues relevant to their particular programme and use this opportunity to interact and share common challenges during the joint sessions.
As I conclude, let me reiterate the importance of the work you are doing. Those without digital skills face barriers to jobs, education, healthcare, and social connection. Building these skills is key to reducing socio-economic and age-related divides.
On this note, I wish all of you a successful event!
Thank you!
