This is our yearly ‘special edition’ of Connect-World which literally covers the whole world. It normally includes authors from all the world’s continents.
The magazine often includes contributions from government ministers and others in the public sector, as well as the biggest names in the ICT Industry. The Global edition discusses how developments in ICT are affecting the way we live and do business as a global community.
Past editions of Connect-World: Global have discussed: Smart Cities, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Digital Economy, Cloud Computing and Global Digital Security.
Global 2022
Theme: Privacy and Morality. For decades, Artificial Intelligence, or AI, was the engine of high-level STEM research. Most consumers became aware of the technology’s power and potential through internet platforms like Google and Facebook, and retailer Amazon. Today, AI is essential across a vast array of industries, including health care, banking, retail, and manufacturing.But its game-changing promise to do things like improve efficiency, bring down costs, and accelerate research and development has been tempered of late with worries that these complex, opaque systems may do more societal harm than economic good. With virtually no U.S. government oversight, private companies use AI software to make determinations about health and medicine, employment, creditworthiness, and even criminal justice without having to answer for how they’re ensuring that programs aren’t encoded, consciously or unconsciously, with structural biases. Discuss.
Global 2020
Theme: How will AI impact business and society? In less than a decade, artificial intelligence (AI) has moved from a largely arcane academic pursuit into the mainstream of business and society. Few things as momentous have happened so quickly; even in these early days, AI’s unparalleled capabilities at finding patterns and predicting outcomes are remaking everything from medicine to the image quality on your smartphone.It’s an impressive accomplishment, but with a cost. With all the hope and hype around AI, at times it is hard to think clearly about what AI really is doing and what that means for you, your business, and for society. There are rich tools available to any size business — it’s time to think about how to use them. Global-ICT 2018
Theme: Artificial intelligence and Smart Cities Smart cities are powered by data, collected, generated and connected by a complex network of IoT applications and solutions. As IoT and AI advances, machines continue to learn, improve and make calculated decisions, drawing on the enormous data sets of billions of IoT connected objects to create a continuously-evolving ecosystem of intelligent devices. By accurately measuring and assessing progress in the building of smart city ecosystems, AI can provide the missing link between theory and practice, enabling new urban living applications and solutions, and scaling up smart public services. Global-ICT 2017
Theme: Collaborating in the digital economy: why working together is critical for growth. Rapid technological developments, societal changes and radical new business models are enriching and enlarging the ICT ecosystem. Never before has connectivity offered so much potential for economic growth and social development in the digital economy. And never before have the challenges of extending that connectivity to all been so pressing – raising issues such as universal access, meaningful local content, security, fair and open competition, fit-for-purpose regulation, joined-up policy, quality of service and scaling ICT start-ups and smaller businesses to maximum impact. Global-ICT 2015
Theme: Top security threats global businesses will face in 2015 The top security threats global businesses will face in 2015 include bring your own device (BYOD) trends in the workplace, data privacy in the cloud, brand reputational damage, privacy and regulation, cyber crime and the continued expansion of ever-present technology. Global-ICT 2013
Theme: Innovation in the Digital World Developments such as digital communications, digital media and the Internet are immensely powerful technological innovations. Such enabling technologies are creating amazing products and services delivered through a variety of new business models. As a result, the ICT sector is experiencing radical changes that are impacting users, companies and entire economies. It’s been described as the most profound shift the world has ever seen. There will be winners and losers. How can companies and countries harness the power of innovation in the digital economy to ensure not only survival but future success? Global-ICT 2011
Theme: Cloud power – for industry, commerce, social networking, at home and on the street. Most major companies already use the cloud – cloud computing, that is – or are planning to do so within the next few years. Although many of these companies expect to increase their spending on services delivered through the cloud, most are seriously concerned about what services they will use the cloud for, the service providers they will use and the risks they will face – the potential loss of control over their own data and operations and especially the security of their data. No one doubts the savings cloud-based services can provide, the efficiencies it can bring or even the ‘green’ benefits to be derived, but CIOs and CTOs the world over are beset by doubts regarding both known risks and imponderable possibilities. Global-ICT 2009
Theme: Connecting for a better world – opening the doors to progress Connect-World Global Visionaries, Global Visions 2009 will commemorate the ITU Telecom World 2009 event – Geneva, Switzerland, 5-9 October 2009. The ITU Telecom World 2009 theme, ‘Connecting for a better world – opening the doors to progress’, speaks to the same concerns that the leaders of government, industry and social institutions that written about in our pages over the years – human, regional and industrial development; access to ICT and information; the impact of new technologies; the viability of ICT business models; government policy; and the impact of ICTs upon the great issues that affect our society such as global warming. Global-ICT 2007
Theme: The world’s on a string – using ICT to tie it together! Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are powerful tools, they are changing the way we work and the way we play. The global economy and the lives of many people have changed dramatically as a result of ICTs, and there is a broad consensus – almost faith – in the ability of ICT to solve many, if not all of the world’s problems. The United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) concentrated upon the use of ICTs to create an information society and move forward to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Not a day passes without some new notion about how ICT will create a better world. Global-ICT 2005
Theme: Building the global information economy Connect-World series of magazines is the leading magazine in the telecom and ICT industry that brings together the leading industry players, regulators, associations and governments, to discuss how technological integration and digital inclusion helps reduce the gap the leading industry players, regulators, associations and governments, to discuss how technological integration and digital inclusion helps reduce the gap between the developed and developing world. Global-ICT 2003
Theme: Access To Technology – Leading edge Solutions Connect-World series of magazines is the leading magazine in the telecom and ICT industry that brings together the leading industry players, regulators, associations and governments, to discuss how technological integration and digital inclusion helps reduce the gap the leading industry players, regulators, associations and governments, to discuss how technological integration and digital inclusion helps reduce the gap between the developed and developing world. Global-ICT 2021
Theme: AI and the Future of the Workplace Smart technologies aren’t just changing our homes; they’re edging their way into numerous industries and are disrupting the workplace. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve productivity, efficiency and accuracy across an organization – but is this entirely beneficial? Many fear that the rise of AI will lead to machines and robots replacing human workers and view this progression in technology as threat rather than a tool to better ourselves.Friend or foe?With AI continuing to be a prominent buzzword in 2019, businesses need to realize that self-learning and black-box capabilities are not the panacea. Many organisations are already beginning to see the incredible capabilities of AI, using these advantages to enhance human intelligence and gain real value from their data.As there is increasing evidence demonstrating the benefits of intelligent systems, more decision-makers in the boardroom are gaining a better understanding of what AI can really offer. Research conducted by EY explains “organizations enabling AI at the enterprise level are increasing operational efficiency, making faster, more informed decisions and innovating new products and services.” Global-ICT 2019
Theme: Fewer fancy phones, more fulfilment. The world many of us live in is changing at an exciting pace. Innovations are generating new gadgets, more convenient services and greater opportunities. But many of these changes target a comparatively small percentage of the globe’s population. In many parts of the developing world, nobody has seen an iPhone or can download an app. However, there is tremendous room for entrepreneurs to adapt innovations intended for the wealthy to serve the world’s poor. Solar panels and LED lights, designed for sale in rich nations, are stimulating growth in commercial off-grid electrification in India and Africa. Mobile telecommunication is being used to facilitate financial inclusion in developing countries across the world. Once-expensive medical procedures can be done amazingly cheaply. Even the financial sector is innovating in order to reach the world’s poor; as well as investors looking for opportunities that not only help them increase their net worth but also improve the world. Better financing opportunities are opening up for social entrepreneurs who build businesses to serve the poor profitably. Instead of producing fancier phones, we will create more fulfilling lives for people who have been mostly ignored to date. Global-ICT 2016
Theme: Smart Cities. A smart city is a place where traditional networks and services are made more efficient with the use of Information Communication Technologies, for the benefit of its inhabitants and businesses. Global-ICT 2014
Theme: Content and context – the flip side We object to organisations revealing our personal details but we expose much of it on our own websites. We happily reveal-all on Social Media, yet publish the same information in the press – and it is invasion of personal space. Different people want different privacy at different times, so how do we reach consensus and design cyber privacy standards? Global-ICT 2012
Theme: Digital threats in Cyber life Games of ‘cops and robbers’ are continuing into the digital era. Technology brings clever ways of detecting and preventing crime, with monitoring public places, obtaining digital evidence or pinpointing locations of mobile phones. However, the same technology is also used for sophisticated crimes – organising gang movements, co-ordinating attacks, not to mention digital thefts. Tools of social networking have been at the heart of the Arab Spring, but also aided criminal riots in London. Surveillance cameras capture perpetrators of offences but they also infringe on our liberties. Lawful interception is crucial to state security, but phone tapping of victims in order to sell newspapers is abhorrent to us all. Our industry has to be prepared to cope with both angles of cyber life, navigating carefully between right and wrong, risks and benefits… Global-ICT 2010
Theme: When everything connects We are moving towards an era when everything and everyone is connected at all times. The value of a network expands exponentially as the number of users increases – but so does the traffic, the power consumption and at times its vulnerability. Network growth involves a wide variety of hardware, software and financial planning and practical considerations. There are also profound economic and social consequences to a highly – pervasively – interconnected world. Global-ICT 2008
Theme: The information society 2015 – corporate responsibility and digital access for sustainable development The World Summit on the Information Society, WSIS, established a number of goals for the year 2015. Providing the world’s peoples with access – to connect the world’s people in even the remotest regions, its schools, governments, research centres, libraries, hospitals and health centres, cultural centres, museums, post offices and archives – was the primary goal. One of the most important goals set by the WSIS calls for a world where, “more than half the world’s inhabitants have access to ICTs within their reach,” by 2015. The WSIS also called for, “ensuring that all of the world’s population have access to television and radio services”. Global-ICT 2006
Theme: Digital lifelines – building the digital world Connect-World, from its beginning, has dedicated itself to discussing the impact of ICT upon people, regions and societies throughout the world Global Visionaries, Global Visions 2006 edition will commemorate the ITU Telecom World 2006 event, which will take place in Hong Kong from 4th to 8th December. The theme for Telecom World 2006 is Living the digital world. The event will explore how Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is changing our lives and how the interaction between equipment, services and applications providers is changing how society is structured and how it works. Global-ICT 2004
Theme: TChallenges and Opportunities for Business Society 2004 Connect-World series of magazines is the leading magazine in the telecom and ICT industry that brings together the leading industry players, regulators, associations and governments, to discuss how technological integration and digital inclusion helps reduce the gap the leading industry players, regulators, associations and governments, to discuss how technological integration and digital inclusion helps reduce the gap between the developed and developing world. 