It's a great pleasure to send you my greetings and best wishes. 

The World Internet of Things Convention gathers a wide range of voices to explore the many dimensions of IoT's growing influence on our economies and societies. 

This holistic view is essential. 

IoT is making a key contribution to digital transformation, across every industry and public-sector body.

This raises important questions for technology, business and policy – questions that we can consider together at ITU.  

IoT has been on our standardization agenda since 2005; and before that, by different names, such as Ubiquitous Sensor Networks. 

Today our work on IoT includes a focus on smart cities and communities.  

Achieving our IoT ambitions will call for extensive collaboration among governments, industry players, academia, and the citizens we serve. 

And that's exactly why building consensus at ITU is so important. 

Our standardization work for IoT and smart cities is led by ITU-T Study Group 20. 

ITU prides itself on being the world's most inclusive standards body. 

We offer reduced membership fees for start-ups and SMEs, academia, and companies of all sizes in developing countries. 

Standards support cost-effective growth and innovation, on a global scale – helping all companies to boost their business. 

We are also helping city leaders to make well-informed development decisions with the help of Key Performance Indicators based on ITU standards. 

More than 200 cities are using these KPIs to evaluate their progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

These cities are supported by United for Smart Sustainable Cities, an initiative backed by ITU and another 19 UN partners. 

Alongside KPI evaluations, this initiative is also supporting policy innovation – working closely with governments and city leaders. 

Its most recent reports offer policy benchmarks for cities' digital transformation, and data and API requirements for centralized smart city platforms.

I welcome you to join us. 

Thank you.