IOWN Global Forum 2nd Annual Member Meeting – Highlights
Executive Summary
On April 19-21, 2022, IOWN Global Forum hosted a successful 2nd Annual Member Meeting online, welcoming over 500 registrants from 91 organizations, a 30% increase in registrations and a 75% increase in member company participation since the first Annual Member Meeting in 2021. Along with substantial growth in attendance, there was an increase in member engagement during the meeting, and conversations were lively and interactive throughout the three days of activities and presentations.
The meeting reported on IOWN Global Forum’s progress and achievements over the past year, allowed members to interact and collaborate, and focused on ways to promote the Forum’s activities for continued growth and success in 2022.
Over the three days, members learned about the latest IOWN Global Forum updates, including the objectives and vision of IOWN Global Forum. They gained insights on the status of the Forum from the overall IOWN Global Forum Annual Report and heard from each chair and task force leader regarding upcoming activities and 2022 programs through their Annual Activity Reports. Five newly elected directors who will serve the 2022-2024 term were announced, and seven new member companies who joined the Forum since the February 2022 Member Meeting were introduced and welcomed by attendees. Members also joined in on deep technical discussions of the recently published IOWN Global Forum Vision 2030 Roadmap and its deliverables, listened to presentations from fellow members and fostered strategic, technical and use case discussions throughout their attendance at the meeting.
Opening Message
IOWN Global Forum President and Chairperson Katsuhiko Kawazoe, Ph. D, Executive Vice President, Head of Research and Development Planning, NTT Corporation, welcomed members to the meeting, expressed his gratitude to the members for their contributions, and made opening remarks. He said that all IOWN Global Forum activities are not for injuring any people during a war but for creating a sustainable world where all the people can live in peace. And he stressed we resolutely oppose any war, for whatever reason, that uses all technologies, including IOWN.
Opening Keynote
Geng Wu, Ph. D., an IOWN Global Forum Board Member and Treasurer, Intel Fellow and Chief Technologist for Wireless Standards at Intel, followed with a keynote address titled “Future Generation Computing and Networking,” where he touched on the future of data and shared Intel’s view on next-generation computing and networking technologies.
Wu discussed the shifting nature of data and how the amount of data that exists is dramatically increasing every year and that our current infrastructure will soon not be able to handle it. By 2030, Wu predicts that the next step in furthering wireless connectivity, 6G, will be completed. 6G will allow for a merge: the computing aspect and the cloud aspect will come together, running on a new infrastructure platform created by IOWN Global Forum. Wu shared Intel’s part in this shift, saying that the company is focusing on multiple different technologies that will assist in bringing about this next-generation system, including artificial intelligence, algorithms, and workload management life cycles.
“As the next generation system is being invited into every aspect of our society and our daily life, trust, security, and resiliency are becoming extremely important; therefore, that has to be built natively into our design and for the next generation system.” – Geng Wu, Ph. D.
IOWN Global Forum Updates
Following the Opening Keynote, the five newly elected 2022 Directors, Brad Booth of Microsoft, Chris Wright of Red Hat, Hey-Chyi Young of Chunghwa Telecom, Per Beming of Ericsson, and Dr. Ulrich Dropmann of Nokia Corporation, were announced. Each shared a few words about themselves and expressed their excitement to collaborate with members to accomplish the mission of the IOWN Global Forum.
IOWN Global Forum President and Chairperson Dr. Katsuhiko Kawazoe delivered the IOWN Global Forum State of the Forum Annual Report. He summarized the notable accomplishments that were achieved since the last Annual Member Meeting, such as the publishing of the interim and final reports of AIC and CPS use cases, the release of a six reference document “Starter Pack” for creating an intelligent, energy-efficient all-photonics data and communications architecture, the release of the Vision 2030 Roadmap, the creation of promotional videos, the development of liaisons with external bodies, and the growth of membership, allowing for global-wide collaboration activities, to name a few.
Following Dr. Katsuhiko Kawazoe’s overview of the IOWN Global Forum activities, detailed annual reports were delivered by the Chairs and Leaders of the three Steering Committees, three working groups, and all of the supporting task forces.
New Company Introductions
To wrap up the first day of the 2nd Annual Member Meeting, the IOWN Global Forum welcomed 44 new members since the 2021 Annual Member Meeting, and the following new members who have joined since the 2022 February Member Meeting shared brief introductions:
Sponsor Members: HAKUHODO.INC, VMware.
General Members:Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, Olympus Corporation, Preferred Networks, Inc., SUMITOMO BAKELITE CO., LTD., Shinko Electric Industries Co, LTD, Synopsis Inc.
Steering Committee Updates
Gonzalo Camarillo, Ph. D., Marketing Steering Committee (MSC) Chair, delivered updates on strategic marketing activities and action plans to best support IOWN Global Forum activities. Mohammed Dadas, Vision Steering Committee (VSC) Chair, then discussed the plan to update the White Paper Vision, which was first released shortly after the conception of the Forum. Clara Li, Ph. D., Technology Steering Committee (TSC) Chair, reviewed the recently published Vision 2030 Roadmap, the plans to accomplish the goals within the roadmap, and the next steps.
Representative Meeting
Select member representatives assembled for a Representative Meeting, which was open to all member companies and moderated by Gonzalo Camarillo, Ph. D., MSC Chair. The goal of the Representative Meeting is to facilitate exchanges between representatives of each Member company, discuss challenges and improve operations activities of the IOWN Global Forum. Topics discussed included Proof of Concept (PoC) plans and implementations, as well as options for hybrid and face-to-face meeting formats for future Steering Committee/Working Group meetings.
Member Presentations and Discussions
Three IOWN Global Forum member companies gave presentations on topics that covered innovative technologies being created with the help of IOWN technology. Presenting companies included NTT Data Italia, Chunghwa Telecom, and Nokia. Katsutoshi Itoh, Use Case Working Group (UCWG) Chair, and Masahisa Kawashima, Ph. D., Technology Working Group (TWG) Chair, moderated these sessions.
Antonio Policicchio, Ph. D., Innovation and Advanced Technology, NTT DATA Italia, presented a new technology called the Territory Digital Twin, data lake and planning platform for sustainability that focuses on smart forestry management. The advanced simulation techniques allow for the construction of highly accurate virtual replicas of territory assets that enables data concentration across correlation, monitoring, assessment, simulation, and more. This technology uses artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, remote sensor technology, and more.
Jhih-Heng Yan, Ph. D., Chunghwa Telecom, presented on open-ended disaggregation of photonic networks. He explained how he wants to evaluate and implement this disaggregation gradually due to various challenges, such as operation responsibility and making sure the networks can leverage the existing proprietary traditional networks, and how this implementation would occur. This disaggregation is important because it will accelerate the innovation of open APN with lower expenditures and less vendor lock-in.
Lieven Levrau, Senior Director Optical Networking Strategy, Nokia, presented on “Next Generation in 6G Mobile Networking, Synchronization, and Deterministicity,” where he discussed more in-depth about 6G. Levrau touched on the importance of various aspects of 6G, such as energy efficiency, resiliency work, sensors, augmented realities, predictive models, automated security, satellites, and more. He believes that 6G is connecting ourselves into a digital fabric that allows for even more connectivity to one another.
Closing Remarks
To close out the three-day online meeting, Masayuki Hattori, Ph. D, Secretary of the IOWN Global Forum and Specially Appointed Chief Engineer R&D Center of Sony Group Corporation, delivered the final remarks, expressing his gratitude to all the members for their suggestions and lively discussions. He concluded the meeting by encouraging members to continue working together to realize the goal of creating a smarter and more sustainable society through IOWN technologies.
All presentations and recordings from the 2nd Annual Member Meeting are now available to all IOWN Global Forum members via the Member Portal. If you are interested in becoming a member, learn how to join today. We thank you all for your support and involvement in making this Annual Member Meeting a success, and we look forward to future Member Meetings with IOWN Global Forum colleagues.
