ITU Telecom World 2009 In Review TECH.3 – CTO ROUNDTABLE FOR GROWTH Technology is constantly evolving, shaped by market forces and the needs of business and consumers. New products and services provide a constant stimulus to ICT industry innovation, although picking “winners and losers” can be a particular challenge in a difficult economic climate. During this session, panelists’ shared visions on what new and exciting services and applications will emerge in the near future, as well as views on the challenges companies were likely to face in order to bring these visions to reality. Summary of moderator’s statement In terms of ICT standards, ITU has been behind each step of Internet’s growth. One of ITU’s fundamental roles is to build competence and security into ICTs. ITU standards enable us to talk and trade securely. Bringing the benefits of ICTs to the world’s less developed countries is a priority for ITU. Climate change is a concern for the whole world – ITU is working to reduce and better understand the impact that technologies have on the environment. Summary of debate In 5 years from now, 3 billion people (some 50% of the global population) will be using broadband – with some 80% via mobile connections. If 12% rate of growth per month over the last 2 years is to be extrapolated over the next 5 years, 1000 times more bytes in terms of network infrastructure capacities are likely to be required. Are the current technologies likely to be sufficient to pro-cess and carry such a traffic load? Would operators’ revenues be multiplied by a same factor? Emphasis should be focused on putting end customers at the heart of business models – knowing how to improve user experiences. In Japan, $50 million sales from easy-to-use phones to increase accessibility for aging people, sensing technologies based on cloud computing to collect data from the real world (e.g. temperatures) for farming and traffic control busi-nesses or new medical applications to simulate organs for detection of effects of medicines on human bodies. 63 Forum Summary Report