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ITU Kaleidoscope Conference 2013 - Building Sustainable Communities

 Kyoto, Japan, 22 April 2013

Opening Address

Professor Hiroshi Matsumoto, President of Kyoto University, and General Chairman of Kaleidoscope 2013;
Hideo Fuseda, Director, Standardization Division, Global ICT Strategy Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Colleagues and friends;

 

Ohayō gozaimasu, yōkoso

Good morning and welcome to this the fifth Kaleidoscope academic conference in the very impressive and historic Kyoto University.

Firstly, let me thank Kyoto University for hosting the event in these excellent facilities, and Professor Matsumoto for his kind welcome, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan for its support to ITU generally and this Kaliedoscope in particular, and Mr Fuseda for being here this morning to greet us. I also thank the members of the Host Committee, chaired by Professor Takahashi of Kyoto University, without whom this event would not have been possible.

Mr Yochi Maeda, Chief Executive Officer of TTC, and former general chairman of Kaleidoscope, has put so much effort into bringing Kaleidoscope to Japan, so our thanks also go to him.

I would also like to thank our generous sponsors: NICT, NTT, OKI, KDDI, NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Huawei Japan, Telkom South Africa, and Research in Motion.

Let me express my gratitude to our partnering organizations: NICT, MIC, TTC, Waseda University, the Institute of Image Electronics Engineers of Japan, the ITU Association of Japan, and EURAS.

In addition I would like to thank our technical sponsors IEEE and the Institute of Electronics and Information and Communication Engineers of Japan (IEICE).

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to be back in the beautiful and ancient city of Kyoto, which has a long history of hosting key international conferences. Among them, in 1994, this city hosted the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, which initiated ITU work on ICT and the environment, in Resolution 35. Three years later, Kyoto hosted the UN conference on climate change that led to the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, which represented a landmark, and hopefully a turning point, in humanity’s relationship with our planet.

So, when in December 2007, the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group endorsed my proposal for a new initiative on ICTs and Climate Change, it was only natural that we should turn again to this beautiful city to host the first ever ITU symposium on ICTs and climate change in April 2008. We were lucky to be here during cherry blossom time. As I said at the time: what better symbol of the fragile beauty of Mother Nature than the delicate cherry blossom? Unfortunately, because of climate change, the cherry blossom peak is already past, but it remains an inspiration to do what we can to protect our fragile environment.

So here we are again, this time with the fifth in the series of academic Kaleidoscope conferences, with a related theme: Building Sustainable Communities. I proposed this theme in recognition of the tremendous response in Japan to the tragic consequences on the Great East Japan Earthquake.

ICTs can help us meet such environmental challenges, and build the sustainable communities of the future.The climate change symposium in 2008 initiated considerable activity in ITU, and now the eight symposium will be held in Turin, Italy later this month.

As was requested at that first symposium, ITU developed and adopted a set of standardized methodologies to assess the environmental impact of ICT. A number of energy efficient standards have been approved, notably the universal mobile phone charger standard– putting an end to a vast amount of e-waste and wasted energy. Also best practices for data centres as well as many guidelines and reports on, for example, greening supply chains, sustainability in businesses, and a review of mobile handset eco-rating schemes. All are available on the ITU-T website.

The first Kaleidoscope conference was also in 2008 in Geneva, and was followed by events in Argentina, India and South Africa. At the last Kaleidoscope in Cape Town, I stressed that standardization is the key to ensuring that ideas are turned into reality. I am pleased to report that academic participation in our standardization work is increasing, and the injection of many more ideas and innovation is bringing even greater value for the sector as well as the participants themselves.

Since the beginning of 2011, universities have been able to join ITU and I am very pleased to report that we now have 50 universities that are academic members of ITU, 38 of which are members of the ITU standards sector. I am very pleased to announce that Kyoto University is the latest to join ITU.ITU’s membership of 193 member states and over 700 private-sector entities represents an extraordinary opportunity for academics to bring their ideas to life through standardization, raise the profiles of their institutions and uncover potential sources of future funding.

Perhaps more importantly, academia’s participation in the standardization process will ensure those that create innovation play a greater role in determining how their innovations are reflected in standards and public policy.

Academic membership is available with an affordable fee structure for academic establishments in developed and developing nations, CHF4000 and CHF2000 respectively, and we encourage you to make use of this opportunity to meet experts from the ICT industry, governments and regulators from around the world.

ITU welcomes and encourages academia’s participation in debates surrounding all of our work. This year’s Kaleidoscope attracted many excellent submissions, which will surely provide fuel for an illuminating debate on the future of ICT in our study groups. Our academic members can make submissions in the name of their university to any meeting of the sector, take on leadership roles, take advantage of internships in our Bureau, and have their contribution to new international standards recognized.

Ninety-nine papers were submitted for peer-review, and 30 were selected for presentation at the conference, 11 of them from Japan!

This selection of papers is published in both IEEE Xplore Digital Library and the Kaleidoscope proceedings which you have all received on CD, and I must thank those who undertook the difficult task of selecting the papers most-deserving of presentation and, in particular, Dr Kai Jakobs, Chair of the Technical Programme Committee. I am sure it was a difficult task.

A prize fund totaling USD 10,000 will be awarded to the authors of the three best papers.

Young Author Recognition certificates will be issued to young authors presenting their ideas, and two BlackBerry PlayBooks will be donated to the presenters of the two best-ranked papers among the recipients of these certificates.

In addition to two keynote speeches from Japan, three invited papers, lecture and poster paper presentations, this event will include:

So we are in for a very interesting week

.In addition to Kaleidoscope, however, there are many ways in which you can be involved with ITU and its work. For example:

    • Become a member of ITU.
    • Follow and participate in our Technology Watch initiative, in which we very much encourage the contributions of academia and research insitutes.
    • Attend, free of charge, our ITU workshops, where we advance existing work areas and explore new ones.
    • ITU also offers remote participation in its major symposia, seminars and workshops; allowing one to participate in an event, avoiding the financial and environmental costs of travel.
    • Download our ITU standards from our website free of charge.
    • We also have a new Q&A s section on the web where you can post a question on any area of our work… and get a response from one of our many experts

.I hope to see you continuing to participate and I wish you a very enjoy Kaleidoscope conference.

Thank you.
Arigatō gozaimasu.