Dear Organizers of this exciting BIGMUN-conference, dear delegates,  
Dear guests,

I am delighted to get the opportunity to speak to you at today’s opening ceremony of BIGMUN 2017.
I really like the idea behind this conference, where you all live up to the high standards of international cooperation in a setting very similar to the UN.
Your willingness to gather from all over Europe and USA and spend 4 days with intensive work in order to deal with some of the most important problems in the world today, trying to find solutions that might have a chance to be implemented if they could be transferred into the real UN-system, is admirable! 

What are the problems we are facing right now as international, national and local communities, as human beings and as citizens of the world?

How do we prepare ourselves for a world on the move, a world shaking under permanent and severe change, a world with an apparently never-ending flood of misinformation, a world threatened with global climate change?
How do we fight poverty, illiteracy, gender inequality, illnesses and viruses such as HIV and AIDS?

In his New Years address the Danish Prime Minister stated: “We cannot build walls against the world. If we do, we will end up locking up ourselves”.  I couldn’t agree more!  How can we even start understanding each other if we don’t even know each other?
We need to spread the ideas of the necessity of international cooperation in order to solve our problems.

Do we have any tools to deal with today’s challenges in the world?
Yes we have, but they are no quick fixes.  
We must ally ourselves with patience, energy, and determination, when we bring our best weapon in the game: Education! 

We need education for all human beings in the world. Education helps us understand and accept each other’s differences.
It equips people with the necessary abilities to exercise and realize their rights and take control of their lives. 

As patron of UNESCO in Denmark, I strongly support their highly ambitious programs: Education for All and Education for the 21st Century. Which put all their efforts into bringing education to as many people in the world as possible because they know that education transforms lives. UNESCO gives great attention to information and communication technologies in order to improve access to learning opportunities. 

They offer various innovative possibilities for realizing lifelong learning, reducing the dependence on traditional formal structures of education and permitting individualized learning.
Through mobile devices, electronic networking, social media and on-line for people with disabilities permitting their full integration into society, as well as for other marginalized or disadvantaged groups.

We are just now in the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution, which points to the remarkable advances in information technologies, artificial biological sciences, reproductive technologies, and neuroscience.
The World Economic Forum described it as: “ a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”
These massive and accelerated changes in required knowledge and skills are at the same time frightening and promising. The ability to master new knowledge and skills are necessary tools in order to deal with the challenges of the world.

You are young students showing commitment to take responsibility, and you have the abilities and skills needed to cope with the challenges the world is facing today.
This gives great hope for the future and we are very proud and impressed by your wish to make this world a better place.
One last piece of advice from me: make full use of these days to build strong relationships because your personal network is what the world will need…

I wish you luck and happy days for the rest of this week, when you attend BIGMUN, but also in the future where you bring back your experiences to your own country.