ITU continues to provide leadership in building cooperation among the many bodies active in ICT standardization.
Some 10 per cent of all ITU standards are common or aligned texts with the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology (ISO/IEC JTC1). Highlights of recent collaboration with IEC and ISO include the release of ITU-T H.265 HEVC and two standards fundamental to the cohesion of cloud computing's development.
ITU-T continues to engage in many collaborative standardization efforts with other SDOs such as the
. IoT, 5G, Security and Privacy and SMEs were the focus of the 20th meeting of the Global Standards Collaboration (GSC-20), hosted by TSDSI in New Delhi, India, 26-27 April 2016. GSC-20 welcomed ISO and IEC as new GSC members. ITU hosts the
The ITU-ETSI MoU was reaffirmed in 2016. ETSI and ITU continue to enjoy successful collaboration in particular in the fields of green ICT standards. Topics of shared interest in this arena include, for example, ICT energy efficiency and methodologies to assess the environmental impacts. Standardization for C&I testing is another area supported by strong ETSI-ITU collaboration, with collaborative projects including SIP-IMS conformity testing; Internet-related performance measurement; and a framework for the interconnection of VoLTE/ViLTE-based networks.
AIS is a non-profit professional association for individuals and organizations who lead the research, teaching, practice, and study of information systems worldwide. Both parties will cooperate on technical challenges of ICT ecosystems and infrastructures that would bring greater certainty, confidence, and predictability to interactions within the Information Society.
GTARC is a non-profit supporting organization of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (Georgia Institute of Technology is an ITU academia member). Both parties will raise awareness for IoT standardization. Read the press release
ITU has signed a cooperation agreement with IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, a USD 5 million competition that aims to accelerate the development of scalable Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to address humanity's grandest challenges. Read an ITU blog piece on the agreement
. ITU will draw on its global network of ICT experts to propose judges to join the XPRIZE scientific advisory board, in addition assisting in the proposition of datasets, test environments and other resources to aid the research of XPRIZE entrants. ITU also plans to offer mentors and other technical experts to assist entrants in improving their applications and showcasing their work, and this offer of assistance will also extend to the provision of an ecosystem of technical tools and resources.
ITU-T organizes a range of events in partnership with other organizations on subjects of mutual interest.
Open source and standards for 5G
Workshop on Open Source and Standards for 5G organized by ITU and the NGMN Alliance at Qualcomm Headquarters in San Diego, USA, 25 May 2016.
Smart cities
The first World Smart City Forum, organized by IEC in partnership with ISO and ITU, was held in Singapore, 13 July 2016, co-located with the World Cities Summit
www.worldcitiessummit.com.sg/ and Singapore International Water Week
www.siww.com.sg. The first
World Smart City online community was launched in January 2016 in the approach to the Forum. Find the online community
here. A
Workshop on laying the foundation for Sustainable Development Goals: Role of Smart Sustainable Cities was organized by ITU and UNECE in Geneva, 2 May 2016. A
Forum on shaping smarter and more sustainable cities: striving for sustainable development goals was organized by ITU, UNECE, Tecnoborsa, and the Chamber of Commerce of Rome, and hosted by Ministry of Economic Development of Italy in Rome, Italy, 18-19 May 2016.
Academia
IEC, ISO, and IEC organize World Standards Cooperation (WSC) Academic events, which aim at discussing the role of academia in the standards-development process. The fourth WSC Academic Day was held in Frankfurt, Germany, on 12 October 2016. The third WSC Academic Roundtable,
Engaging academia in standardization for a sustainable future, was organized by ITU-T in Bangkok on 17 November 2016.
Intelligent transport systemsITU/UNECE Symposium on
The Future Networked Car held within the Geneva International Motor Show brings together representatives of vehicle manufacturers, the automotive and ICT industries, governments and their regulators to discuss the status and future of vehicle communications and automated driving. The 11th edition of the symposium was held 9 March 2017.
Workshop on How Communications will Change Vehicles and Transport was organized by ITU and the Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) in Japan 4-5 July 2016.
Vehicle Connectivity workshop was organized by ITU and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) in Detroit, US, 29-30 November 2016.
SMART cables for climate monitoring
The ITU/WMO/UNESCO-IOC Joint Task Force on SMART Cable Systems is leading an ambitious new project to equip submarine communications cables with climate and hazard-monitoring sensors.
Workshop on SMART Cable Applications in Earthquake and Tsunami Science and Early Warning was organized by ITU, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) and the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) in Potsdam, Germany, 3-4 November 2016.
5th workshop on SMART Cable Systems: Latest Developments and Designing the Wet Demonstrator Project was organized by ITU, WMO and UNESCO-IOC in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 17-18 April 2016.
ICT, environment and climate change [84]
6th ITU Green Standards Week: Shaping Smart Sustainable Cities: Towards Habitat III, 5-9 September 2016, Montevideo, Uruguay, hosted by the Municipality of Montevideo, Uruguay. The 6th ITU Green Standards Week was co-organized with the Inter-American Association of Telecommunication Enterprises (ASIET), the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Basel Convention Regional Centre for the South American Region (CRBAS) and the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF). Full text of the press release highlighting the event's conclusion with the adoption of the
Montevideo Declaration is available
here.
Climate Neutral ITU: ITU has continued to reduce its own operational environmental footprint. For the consolidated UN "Greening the Blue Report 2016", pertaining to 2015 final data, ITU's overall worldwide operational footprint was 3.56 tCO2e per capita according to UN standard reporting protocols. This is 54% better (lower) than the average for all reporting UN organizations, and places ITU being in the best quintile of the 66 organizations reporting. ITU's net reduction of emissions per capita from 2010 to the latest (2015) data is 7% per annum. ITU is now climate-neutral worldwide and is certified as such by UNFCCC for the reporting year 2015.
e-Waste [85]From 2015 until October 2016, ITU and the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CTU) collaborated on an ITU-funded e-Waste project. The objective of the project was the formulation of model policies in the areas of environmental standards, electronic waste management and recycling, focusing in particular on television devices, as well as mobile phones and computers.
In partnership with University of La Plata of Argentina, ITU is developing a project to establish a Pilot Plant that will provide concrete responses to the E-Waste problems in cities in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. This project also seeks to contribute to the implementation of WTDC Resolution 66 (Rev. Dubai, 2014) to provide assistance to developing countries in the use of ICTs to mitigate and address the effects of climate change, taking into account the impact of ICTs on the environment.
Joint UN Workshop on Towards building effective partnerships for sustainable management of e-waste was organized by ITU, the Secretariat of the Basel Convention, ECLAC, UNIDO, WHO, and WIPO in Geneva, 5 May 2016.
Cybersecurity
Workshop on Cybersecurity strategy in African countries was organized by ITU and the African Telecommunication Union (ATU) in Khartoum, Sudan, 26 July 2016.
[77] WTSA Res. 7; WSIS AL C2, C11; SDG Targets 9.1, 17.16, 17.17
[78] WSIS AL C2, C5, C11; SDG Targets 9.5, 9.C, 17.16, 17.17
[79] WSIS AL C7 e-environment, C11; SDG Targets 7.B, 13.B, 17.16, 17.17
[80] WSIS AL C3, C11; SDG Targets 9.C, 17.16, 17.17
[81] WSIS AL C3, C11; SDG Targets 9.C, 17.16, 17.17
[82] WSIS AL C2, C3, C11; SDG Targets 9.1, 9.5, 17.6, 17.8, 17.16
[83] WSIS AL C11; SDG Targets 17.6, 17.16
[84] PP Dec. 5, 13, PP Res. 25, 71, 182, WTDC Res. 1, 5, 30, 66
[85] PP Dec. 5, 13, PP Res. 25, 71, 182, WTDC Res. 1, 5, 30, 66; SDG Targets: 11.6, 12.2, 12.5, 12.6, 12.a
