Geneva, Switzerland, 16 January 2014​

Opening Address

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to this second meeting of the ITU-T Review Committee, and I wish you all an excellent 2014 !.

One of the reasons WTSA-12 established this committee was to look at ways to better integrate the needs of vertical sectors in our work. ICTs are now in all walks of life, so the successful development of standards increasingly requires interaction with entities that traditionally had no involvement in ITU. How do we make our work more visible outside the organisation and how do we encourage a wider participation in our work?

Over the last year, ITU-T had some success in increasing its collaboration with new players, for example in the healthcare field, cooperation with Continua Health Alliance led to the adoption last December of a new standard that gives interoperability design guidelines for personal health systems, some of the automotive industry has joined the ITS Collaboration; and some irrigation ministries have joined the Focus Group on Smart Water management.

WTSA-08 initiated the academia membership which is proving successful. We now have 46 universities in ITU-T, and many now actively contribute to the work of study groups. One of them has contributed to this meeting.

However much more needs to be done. The Focus Groups have attracted new entities but many are non-profit making and cannot afford the level of membership fee.

WTSA-08 also introduced a lower membership fee for new Sector Members from certain low income countries, but this has not proved very successful.

Establishing positive collaboration and cooperation relationships with the wide community that now has a stake in ICT standard development is a challenge. The Review Committee was established to give membership the time to address this challenge. ITU has a long history of adaptation – it would not have survived since 1865 had it not been able to continually reform itself to meet the challenges of the day, and I am sure it will continue to do so. This is why your work is so important.

RevCom is a platform to develop a strategic vision as opposed t the operational workings of TSAG, all ideas should be welcomed – however radical or new.

It is an opportunity to brainstorm new ideas and in that spirit I am pleased to see the contribution from the University of Zurich on Tussle Analysis. It is the sort of new thinking that I hope will committee will encourage.

The Vice-Chairmen have an important role in holding consultations in their regions and I hope some initial ideas might be presented to the next meeting.

To underline the importance of this Review Committee the last meeting of the Chief Technology Officer Group in Bangkok last October encouraged it to meet more than once a year and promised to contribute actively to your work, particularly to assist in the task of how to enhance cooperation with other standards bodies and so minimize duplication.

I am pleased to see the progress made by the Action Plan Correspondence group under the leadership of Mr. Liebler and the Questionnaire Correspondence group under the leadership of Ms Fukahori, which provide a good basis to move forward into the substantive discussion.

So to conclude, your work is very important for the future of ITU-T and I am sure that the result will be an organization that is well able to meet the demands of a continuously evolving industry and serve the needs of our increasingly diverse membership.

I would like to thank the Chairman and the Management Team for their hard work in preparing for this meeting.

I very much appreciate the participation of so many experienced and active members in this meeting, including the remote participants, and I wish you all a very productive meeting.