UN General Assembly
2014

exciting information age. Today, a young girl armed with a smartphone in Gujarat, India, can Google the same satellite images of our planet as a child in Great Britain. Exposed to the right ideas on the Internet, children — whether in Greensboro in the United States, or Grenoble in France, or Grenada in the Caribbean — can have the same seeds of hope, the same aspirations for happiness and personal growth, and the same sense of duty towards neighbourhood and planet. For aspiring young people everywhere, coming of age is symbolized by ownership, not of a car, but of a mobile phone or a computer tablet. Those are today’s vehicles on the information highway for the world’s youth seeking ideas, identity and connectedness. We come to the United Nations today to feel that sense of connectedness amid the chaos of today’s challenges. We come to these refurbished Headquarters to renew our commitment to peace and security and to revitalize our mission, not to the stars, but to work for a safer planet with shared prosperity for all. Today,