Monday, 4 October ITU And “the future” – to quote the great Mahatma Gandhi – “depends on what we do in the present.” Distinguished guests, From today, and for the next three weeks, Guadalajara will be the capital city of the ICT world. It depends on our Member States being bold and be-ing visionary. It depends on agreements being reached So it is both a tremendous pleasure and a rare privilege to be with you here today in the ‘Pearl of the West’, one of the foremost cultural centres of Mexico. that will provide a sound platform not just for the next four years ahead, but for the next decade. Over the past four years, we have made extraordinary progress. I will be looking forward not just to three weeks of hard work here, but also to hearing Mariachi music in its traditional home, and to sampling the many local culinary specialities on offer. Since I took office, at the beginning of 2007, the number of mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide has almost doubled – to reach an extraordinary five billion subscriptions. I would also like to thank the Governor of the State of Jalisco, Emilio González Márquez, for the wonder-ful The number of Internet users has also come close to doubling in the same period, so that today around two billion people have access to the Internet. hospitality that has been shown to ITU and to our membership. I have come to know the Governor personally during the preparatory phase of this conference and he has already converted me into a Chivas fan! And by the end of the year we expect there to be 900 million mobile broadband subscriptions. ICTs are transforming the way we live, work and play. Jalisco is not only known for Mariachis and Chivas, of course, but is also famous as Mexico’s Silicon Valley. Indeed, it is home to many global ICT companies, and is therefore the perfect venue for ITU’s Plenipotentiary Conference. They are transforming healthcare, education, trans-portation networks, the energy sector and the provi-sion of government services. They are generating jobs, and driving growth, produc-tivity and long-term economic competitiveness. Ladies and gentlemen, They are helping us accelerate progress towards meet-ing the Millennium Development Goals. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of the work we will undertake here in Guadalajara at ITU’s 18th Plenipotentiary Conference. Distinguished guests, We are here to shape the future. Who would have dreamed, 25 years ago, that the world would change so quickly? That we would be able to ac-cess Not just the future of the ITU, but the whole future of the ICT sector – which now influences every other business sector worldwide, and which now reaches into the lives of almost everyone on the planet. our email and the Internet from a smartphone or a portable tablet? That we could be guided accurately 7