Emerging ICT Trends: Open Source Technologies for Sustainable Development

For the past decade, innovation spurred by open source technologies has offered new possibilities, expanded markets and offered alternative business models in the ICT market. It has gained in stature as increasingly organizations and companies include it due to its flexibility and collaborative nature, but also its potential benefits: such as sharing risk, reducing lead times, improving quality and interoperability, as well as softer "network effects". With significantly reduced R&D costs, especially important for new entrants, solutions can be brought to market faster and in a more timely fashion. It also leads to a global trend where many governments invest in technologies and standards to ensure competitiveness in the global marketplace and to build the capacity of their digital economies.

The discussion of this session will provide an overview of the possibilities, the barriers preventing their up-scale and growth, challenges and opportunities in open source, and share best practices and know-how. The panel will also look at how multiple stakeholders can support the micro-ecosystems surrounding these technologies, including policy measures, regulatory means and spurring investment, and adoption and development of the technologies.