Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
remarks at the Diplomatic Club of Geneva
New Year Reception at ITU Headquarters
[As prepared for delivery]
Good evening, everyone.
Bonsoir à toutes et à tous!
Je vous souhaite une très bonne année (and a happy Lunar New Year) et bienvenue à l'UIT.
J'aimerais remercier à Ambassadeur Loretan [Raymond Loretan, President, Diplomatic Club of Geneva] et le Club Diplomatique de Genève pour sa générosité et tous ses efforts dans l'organisation de cette magnifique soirée.
I have the great honour of welcoming Mayor Christina Kitsos, representing the Republic and Canton of Geneva, as well as the Swiss Confederation — thank you for being with us tonight.
And my dear friends Marc [Marc Pictet, President, Fondation pour Genève] and Tatiana [Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General, United Nations Office at Geneva] — always a pleasure to see you.
Let me also thank my fellow Elected Officials — Mario [Mario Maniewicz, Director of ITU's Radiocommunication Bureau], Seizo [Seizo Onoe, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau], and Cosmas [Cosmas Luckyson Zavazava, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau].
And especially all of you, the diplomatic, business and academic community of Geneva for joining us this evening.
We're here to kick off 2025: a very special year for ITU as we celebrate 16 decades of existence.
Yes, it's our 160-year anniversary.
And we are celebrating the incredible evolution of this great organization over the past century and a half!
Let's start with some trivia to test your ITU knowledge.
Why was the ITU created?
Answer: To facilitate crossborder communications.
At the time it was in regard to telegraphic communications (technology, interoperability, access, standards, and later of course spectrum have been at the core).
From 1865, when the first international telegraph regulations were published.
To developing technical standards as the first telephones made their way into homes at the turn of the 20th century.
To joining the UN family and making Geneva our home in the late 1940s,
And holding the world's first space communications conference also here in Geneva in 1963.
To fostering global networks that would become the Internet and identifying a “Missing Link" between access to telecom infrastructure and economic growth in the 70s and 80s. And even winning some Emmy Awards along the way.
More trivia: Who wants to guess how many Emmys ITU has won up until now? Answer: Six!
To shaping more inclusive and skilled digital societies at the turn of the new millennium, and to holding the first ever World Summit on the Information Society
More trivia: Where and in which years were those Summits held? Answer: 2003, here in Geneva, and then Tunis in 2005.
To building capacity to navigate what some call “the intelligent age" of AI, cybersecurity, quantum computing, lunar communications and more.
ITU is proud to have held the very first UN conference on artificial intelligence back in 2017 − well before ChatGPT took the world by storm.
And we are proud that the AI for Good Global Summit continues to call Geneva home and brings great value to global AI governance discussions.
Even as we celebrate our rich history, we also reflect, because our mission is far from complete, and we can't take our eyes off the ball.
Our strategic goals of universal connectivity and sustainable digital transformation must be met.
Because as we speak, one-third of humanity — 2.6 billion people — remain offline, cut off from every digital opportunity, the gender digital divide is widening in least-developed countries, 30 years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action − and a climate crisis “demands far more global attention and action," as UN Secretary-General Guterres reminded the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.
Geneva is the perfect launchpad to tackle these challenges.
Because this is where the international community — all of you — works so hard to advance issues that concern all of humanity.
From public health to human rights, trade, migration, and labour, IP, weather monitoring and forecasting, disaster risk reduction, to science and innovation – and I must add as well as an important growing digital diplomacy portfolio.
2025 is the year to deepen our cooperation further.
And to celebrate ITU's 160-year legacy by bringing our work on digital technologies to the people of Geneva, of Switzerland, and of the world.
We are already well on our way.
Together with our friends at UNOG [the United Nations Office at Geneva] and CERN [the European Organization for Nuclear Research] — who are here with us tonight — ITU is hosting the photo exhibition called Not a Woman's Job?
I encourage you to take some time to check out the exhibition on the ground floor of this building and be inspired by the stories of some truly incredible technologists − who happen to be women.
Later this year, on May 18th, ITU and WHO will join forces to “Walk the Talk" with a focus on technology and health.
A new Giga Connectivity Centre, at the Geneva Biotech Campus, has just opened its doors and will leverage the world-renowned Swiss innovation ecosystem to help connect every school on Earth to the Internet by 2030.
Many of you are part of the Digital Kitchen as we call it, an informal Geneva network to discuss and help drive forward the implementation of the Global Digital Compact.
And ITU remains dedicated to our headquarters project, lovingly called the “Geneva Campus." A big thanks to the Swiss Confederation for its steadfast support on this project from the beginning, and especially during this milestone year.
We will be hosting at the same time as AI for Good the WSIS+20 review where we will take stock of achievements and look to the future.
We will continue to remain lazer focused on our core − from connectivity to Infrastructure resilience, capacity building, to sustainability, to space, to AI, to quantum, to DPI, and much much more.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Tomorrow many ITU colleagues and millions around the world will celebrate the beginning of the Lunar New Year.
The Year of the Snake symbolizes good luck, rebirth, resilience and longevity.
It's with that spirit that we look ahead to the next century and a half.
ITU's 194 Member States, 1,000-plus sector members – and you, the diplomats, academics and business leaders of Geneva – we have our work cut out for us.
Let's make sure this digital age (the intelligent age) is defined by meaningful connectivity and sustainable digital transformation for everyone, everywhere.
So, if you'll join me in raising your glasses − here's to the next 160 years!
