Speech by Malcolm Johnson, ITU Deputy Secretary-General
Opening remarks - ITU-UNECE Symposium on the Future Networked Car
9 March 2017, Palexpo, Geneva
Eva Molnar, Director of the UNECE Sustainable Transport Division
Distinguished colleagues and friends,
Good morning and welcome to this Symposium on the Future Networked Car.
It is 10 years since I first opened this event. It was then called the Fully Networked Car event and the purpose was to bring together experts from the ICT standardization sector and the automotive sector, with a view to help the development of the technologies that we now enjoy in modern vehicles, and can see coming on the near horizon. In recent years, we have enjoyed the strong support of UNECE in its organisation, for which we are very grateful, and together we have managed to encourage a constructive dialogue between our two communities.
We have also been fortunate to receive sponsorship for the event from our industry partners, and this year I would like thank TÜV SÜD and YGOMI. Your support is very much appreciated.
As we know, the automotive industry is undergoing unprecedented transformation. Many alliances are being formed between vehicle manufactures and Internet/IT companies. Internet of Things and consumer electronics shows now often feature the cars of the future.
Much of the buildup to this Geneva Motor Show has focused on the latest technological innovations in automated driving and autonomous cars.
As the UN specialized agency for ICTs, ITU has spent much of the last ten years supporting the convergence of the ICT sector and other industry sectors, with Intelligent Transport Systems being a prime example. Many industry sectors now rely on information and communication technology, and are forging new partnerships with the ICT sector, to mutual their benefit.
ITU itself has made an effort to improve its collaboration with other industries beyond its traditional membership, as well as with other international organisations.
But this itself can be a challenge, with perceived encroachment on traditional areas of competency, and the coming together of different cultures.
However, I am pleased to say that ITU has always had a very open culture, welcoming new players, and has always enjoyed a large private sector membership, currently over 700 companies, and now has a growing academia membership of around 140 universities, as well as civil society and a variety of regional and international organisations in addition to our 193 Member States. ITU has always been open to new collaborations and forging new partnerships.
Which is the purpose of this event: to open up lines of communication, offering a platform for the ICT and automotive sectors to learn from one another and improve the coordination, collaboration and cooperation that is so essential in today’s modern world.
ITU, being one of the three major international standards organisations dealing with this technology, is ready and willing to work with others to ensure it plays its part in providing the standards, spectrum and regulatory environment that will allow for the development of the exciting new applications we will be hearing about today.
Together with UNECE, ITU has enabled constructive dialogue between our communities, for instance through the “Collaboration on ITS Communication Standards”, which the chairman Russ Shields will talk about later.
A good example of a product of this dialogue is the new global regulation for vehicle emergency calls "Automatic Emergency Call Systems", which will reference an ITU voice-quality performance standard, and we are near to approving a new ITU standard for secure remote software updates to connected vehicles – an area of great interest to the automotive community.
As collaborators, we must play to our strengths, drawing on each other’s expertise to the common good.
Last September we were very pleased to welcome Hyundai the first carmaker to become a member of ITU, and I am pleased to say Hyundai is already providing leadership in ITU’s standardization work on ITS security.
The success of these technologies will hinge on effective partnerships such as this, within and across industries, incorporating the public and private sector, and we look forward to other new partners joining us in this critical work which will save lives, reduce pollution and enhance quality of life.
Today we will be looking at the challenges and opportunities of the major developments in this technology: 5G; Big Data; and Artificial Intelligence.
Trust in this new technology will be essential if it is to be widely adopted, which makes security and privacy key topics.
The safety-critical ICT applications of the automotive industry cannot allow for any margin for error. These applications must work perfectly every time.
In closing, I would like to thank all the speakers and moderators for contributing to today’s event, and all the participants for joining us. I wish you a very interesting and enjoyable day.