ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to Youth2Connect, our next stop on the Road to Addis.
Today, as the world celebrates International Youth Day, we recognize the vital role of young people in helping solve so many of the formidable challenges now facing humanity.
Today's adult generation increasingly understands that we need to involve young people in all we do, if we want to do it well.
And nowhere is this more true than in the digital sphere, where young digital natives have the power to innovate for change on a truly unprecedented level.
I was deeply moved some days ago when, at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, two high-jumpers decided not to go for a tie-breaker, opting instead to share the gold medal.
One of them said in an interview that they both deserved the gold, and that, I quote: “This is beyond sport… This is the message we want to deliver to the young generation".
The messages we deliver today to young people really do matter.
But we need to go even further. This is no longer about one-way communication from the older, to the younger.
As UN Secretary-General Guterres noted in his message to world youth, it is time to treat young people as full partners in our effort to build a better world.
Young people will inherit a world that is being dramatically reshaped by today's technological advances.
And some of them are already playing their own active role in defining the evolution of digital platforms and services that are reshaping the world of their elders.
Engaging in a 'dialogue of equals' will help each generation understand the challenges the other faces, and what each needs from tomorrow's technologies, so that we can ensure that digital remains a positive and catalytic force in building 'the world we want'.
ITU's Generation Connect initiative is all about encouraging the participation of young people as partners and advisors to the leaders driving today's digital transformation.
The journey so far has been inspiring; young people from all around the world have shown us just how motivated they are to get involved.
Their unique insights, skills and regional perspectives will ensure that the Generation Connect Youth Summit, to be held just ahead of our World Telecommunication Development Conference next June, generates bold and meaningful outcomes that can feed directly into our WTDC agenda and discussions.
On our Road to Addis, our path towards WTDC, involving and empowering young people is a critical step towards setting out a revitalized, reinvigorated global development agenda that finally harnesses the truly transformational power of digital to deliver on the 2030 Agenda.
I look forward to a very inspiring session ahead.
