Month: September 2017

In fact, it already has started –  and has been running autonomously for over 8 years. It’s called Multi Agent System, one of the branches of AI. It has evolved rapidly into many different forms, but most impressively one of its forms is autonomous. It pays for itself, it lives independently, and the first successful implementation has been living on this planet for over 8 years now. Not only does it earn its living, it also incentivizes people to work for it.

For the very first time, we have an unstoppable autonomous living organism built by us, not owned by us but owned by itself. It currently consumes over $3Billion USD a year in resources, and many AI top global experts are starting to embrace and understand its autonomous nature. Initially, most of them did not think it was AI, or even take the time to understand it, maybe because it was not created in AI Labs or academia and didn’t evolve as an AI project, but rather through a series of organic evolutionary steps toward financial independence from third parties to reduce transactions frictions

The technology was built by elite cryptographers and computer scientists, game theorists and lawyers. Don’t let the name of this group name fool you into thinking it is lacking in sophistication. Cypherpunks created many versions of electronic decentralized value exchange systems until one took off: it’s called Bitcoin. Since then, it has created over 20 million jobs and is thought by many to be the start of the next major revolutionary innovation, bigger than the internet.

Now, it is about to get additional AI components and protocol upgrades, and will soon be living jointly on almost every electronic device, not necessarily in its current protocol but certainly in an evolved, efficient and scalable version. It may not be even called Bitcoin, but while the evolutionary steps are referred to as layer 2, layer 0, version 2.0, 8.8 or whatever it is called, the fact remains that the start of this revolutionary technology began with Bitcoin.

It will continue paying for itself and for the people working on it. Many refer to the same technology as blockchain. Currently, blockchain represents at the very least, a living proof of autonomous electronic life and independence. Like it or not, it will soon become the backbone of our entire financial system, real estate, internet, cybersecurity and anything of value to be exchanged or transmitted.

In its initial state, several components were missing, which are now in the process of being implemented to truly disrupt current systems by enabling efficient access to the emerging market for financial inclusion in a complete decentralized setting.

The three major components currently being implemented are:

1. True and immune decentralization. Most people on the planet do not have the capability to own large computers, servers or any of the existing sophisticated machinery to operate a node into the system, but they do have smartphones.
2. Scalable and Efficient. These two go hand in hand. Scalability needs to have a throughput of millions of transactions per second, on-chain. And the efficiency must be increased by a factor of 80 to 90 in order to be considered disruptive while run secure by design.
3. Open and unrestricted access to everyone on the planet, just like oxygen and water. People work for their money and must have full, uncensored and unrestricted access to their own money.

This technology could utilize servers, cloud or other servers but it must not depend on them, not in any shape or form. Decentralization is a cyber security feature and like any cyber security, it is only as good as its weakest link. So if the entire system depends on an elected group of nodes, the elector may even become corrupt and then we are back to square one. Blockchain, just like the Internet, will not and can not have any centralized elements that it depends on, or else it risks becoming an inferior intranet. However, it could certainly have peripheral systems such as tax and financial services. True decentralization must enable the entire system to be dependent only on what everyone has access to: smartphones, 10 seconds to install, nothing else.

• Toufi Saliba will be speaking at the sessions on The value of smart banking: the operational key to making smart cities work and Smart ABC: Digital Finance Roundtable at ITU Telecom World 2017

In medicine, vital signs (or simply “vitals”) represent the most critical indices of physiological function and life. The pulse tells the doctor that a patient’s heart is beating. Temperature indicates that homeostasis is stable. Respiratory rate confirms ongoing circulation of oxygen and carbon dioxide. And blood pressure signifies that vessels are receiving an adequate amount of energy and oxygen. Not only are these vitals important signs of life, they are also fairly easy to measure via hand or simple equipment.

In newborns, vitals can be a little harder to measure. For example, a proper reading of respiratory rate by observation of the rise and fall of the abdomen is problematic if the child is crying. Likewise, a pulse may not always be detected by a finger on the wrist. It is thus common practice that clinical caregivers wait for the newborn to be at rest or sleeping before taking its vitals. In the case of urgent disease diagnosis, the use of more complex and invasive methods for vitals measurement such as blood gas analysis may be necessitated.

In its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN identifies that infant mortality remains a grand challenge. Every year over 3 million infants die within the first month of life. The majority of the casualties occur in resource-poor regions of the world where the more sophisticated vitals measurement options are simply unavailable due to costly equipment and lack of skilled personnel, amongst other logistical factors. There is a critical need for diagnostic methods for newborns which address the challenges of cost and skill, yet lend themselves to early detection.

The cry is the most bounteous signal one could get from an infant. Presently, it already serves a number of vital purposes. At birth, the absence of a cry is usually a sign of intrapartum asphyxia. Post-birth, parents rely on the cry to know when the child is awake or requires attention. Over decades researchers across clinical domains have hypothesised that the infant cry holds a rich amount of information about its physiological well-being, chiefly because crying is the primary communication mechanism of the infant; and is a direct, unfiltered response to internal stimuli which the newborn has no control over. The particular connection between infant cry and breathing has also been identified due to the alignment between the physiological process that governs both.

Today, the fourth industrial revolution heralds technologies like artificial intelligence (machine learning, deep learning) and the Internet of Things (IoTs). These technologies are allowing us to sense, process and transform raw data into actionable knowledge in ways that were never possible before. AI technology can be developed to learn intricate patterns within the cry of an infant and automatically identify patterns which signal pathology (such as breathing difficulty). Deployed via mobile phones or wearables, this technology could dramatically improve how early we are able detect conditions affecting newborns. Insights generated will ensure that infants can be taken, early enough, for potentially life-saving care.

Ubenwa is a cry-based diagnostic app for birth asphyxia

Finally, harnessing the cry as a vital sign could give way to diagnostic methods that are affordable, non-invasive and requiring little or no expertise to use. In the long run, this will help reduce fast-rising healthcare costs in developed countries and also increase access to care in less-developed countries of the world.

Find out more on Ubenwa at the Nigerian National Pavilion at ITU Telecom World 2017 in Busan, Republic of Korea. Ubenwa have also entered the ITU Telecom World Awards at the event.

There is an ambitious, and necessary, goal shared by many in the technology industry to connect at least the next 1.5 billion world citizens to the Internet by 2020. This goal is not just about technology infrastructure, though that is a critical component. To compel people to connect, and to make the Internet relevant, it must be open, interoperable, accessible, easy to navigate and practically useful.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), of which I am a Board member, helps, with other players, to coordinate the Internet’s unique identifiers to ensure a secure, stable, open and interoperable Internet. ICANN through the Domain Name System (DNS), the naming and addressing system, allows any device, person or entity to securely reach another on the Internet.

As more and more Internet users connect, it’s important that they are able to find content that’s relevant to them and their communities in their chosen language. Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) enable people around the world to use domain names in local languages and scripts. IDNs are formed using characters from scripts other than the Latin script such as Arabic, Chinese, or Cyrillic. This helps Internet users across the world and engage online using a domain name system entirely in their chosen language and script.

ICANN’s IDN program is primarily focused on the planning and implementation of IDN top-level domains (TLDs), including IDN country code TLDs and generic TLDs. The IDN Program also supports other activities geared toward a more effective use of IDNs at the second-level of the DNS.

ICANN also encourages Internet application developers to adopt best practices to achieve Universal Acceptance; a concept for Internet applications and systems to treat all TLDs, including IDN TLDs, in a consistent manner, so that users around the world can navigate entirely in local languages using familiar scripts.

Our work on IDNs also contribute to Action Line 8 of WSIS and to target 10.2, under Sustainable Development Goal 10 of the UN SDGs. We firmly believe that a multilingual Internet will foster the creation of local content in local languages, so there is more demand and more benefits on the ground, as the next billion users get connected to the Internet.

It is one of topics I will discuss in the Forum session When connectivity is not enough: driving meaningful digital inclusion, exploring how to improve access to broadband services and applications throughout the world at ITU Telecom World 2017 next week.

Because when we look ahead at the future of the Internet and connectivity, we know there are a host of challenges. At ICANN, we will do our part to help increase global Internet access by making the Internet more accessible in multiple languages around the world.

With over 5 billion mobile users worldwide today and 700 million more expected to connect by 2020, the mobile revolution and digital economy are having a profound effect on our daily lives. Forward-looking policies and regulation will enable countries to reap the most benefit from this digital transformation. As this revolution picks up speed, new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G will become increasingly important, but the pace of change can make it difficult for policymakers and regulators to stay on top of this fast-moving digital environment.

Governments want to make sure that they put the right policies and regulations in place to encourage innovation and investment in digital technologies and services, while also ensuring that consumers reap the full benefits of these new developments. However, the ability to achieve this relies on policymakers and regulators having knowledge about new technologies and business models, and an understanding of the implications of different policy and regulatory approaches.

The GSMA Capacity Building programme draws on the GSMA’s industry insight and research to develop training courses to help policymakers and regulators tackle the key issues shaping mobile today and into the future. There are currently 13 courses on offer, which are delivered either online or face-to-face through a range of strategic partners including several academic institutions across Asia and Africa.

Partnerships with academic institutions are essential to the programme because these relationships allow the GSMA to bring industry insight, academic research and practical examples to the policymakers and regulators of tomorrow.

This year the GSMA established a partnership with Yonsei University Graduate School of Information (YUGSI), one of the top universities in South Korea. Through the partnership GSMA experts deliver training to graduate students at the Yonsei campus in Seoul. In July, 32 students and four professors from Yonsei University visited the GSMA offices in London to learn about issues affecting the mobile industry and for a series of industry visits facilitated by the GSMA. The students received briefings on a broad range of topics including spectrum, regulatory modernisation and IoT. They also benefited from briefings delivered by several organisations including Orange, Telefónica, BT, OFCOM and the OECD.

For YUGSI, this partnership provides the opportunity to enhance academic programmes by providing students with exclusive industry access and global insights into policy and regulatory developments around the world. YUGSI students already have visibility of cutting-edge developments in South Korea, but via the partnership with the GSMA, they also gain a better understanding of the policy challenges and innovative solutions that are being developed in every corner of the world.

This partnership is also of great benefit to the GSMA as it allows us to share industry insights with future policymakers and regulators at they start out on their career path. The GSMA is keen to support regulators and policymakers with the tools and skills that they need to make sure their societies benefit from the amazing changes in mobile and digital technology. The combination of the academic research and insights delivered by YUGSI and the industry expertise that the GSMA brings to the classroom provides an excellent training environment for future decision makers.

To learn more about GSMA Capacity Building courses and academic partnerships visit stand 1210.03 on the exhibition showfloor at ITU Telecom World 2017.

You can also hear from GSMA in the Forum debates – Natasha Jackson, Head of Public Policy & Consumer Affairs, speaking in the Data flows, policy and security: the role of data in smart digital transformation  session; Andy Hudson, Head of Technology Policy at GSMA, in the plenary session on The 5G opportunity: driving digital transformation; and Peng Zhao, Regional Spectrum Policy Director, in New trends in spectrum management.

What is the most important thing that smart cities and smart banking have in common? Both need (and have managed to acquire) plenty of data to become smart. Without data to test how good your models are, nobody can learn and become smart.

Smart cities hold the key to improving access to finance for SMEs and unbanked individuals. Not only are they host to novel technological solutions for sustainable urban development, but they exemplify the power and pace of digital innovation and data.

Limited access to finance has traditionally resulted from the lack of perfect information about a borrower’s ability and willingness to pay. Solutions to this challenge have been to focus on improving the quality of data and requiring collateral. Nevertheless, these solutions have not only proven costly but also highly inefficient. Historical sources of information, including data furnished by the firm, data purchased from credit bureaus as well as data generated from bilateral transactions between the borrower and the lender, have delivered incomplete and/or untrustworthy information, still preventing small firms and individuals from accessing credit.

New convergent technological developments are challenging the status quo of the financial services industry and have led to new business models with the potential of improving access to finance. Thanks to expanded broadband access, the growth of cloud computing and the internet of things, among others, new sources of trusted and low-cost information are becoming available, facilitating the management of collateral and offering alternatives to access to market barriers.

For example, new-entrant market lenders with alternative intermediation models and advanced credit scoring techniques are challenging traditional incumbent banks and pushing the financial services industry toward lowering lending spreads. They are also expanding the set of bankable firms and individuals just as the use of e-commerce, e-payments, and other digital channels is allowing firms and individuals to create a credible and transmissible digital history or identity. New techniques and procedures to handle collateral, supported by blockchain-based registries, are also making the use of collateral more efficient, cheaper, and more secure, further transforming the industry.

With the ability to gather and analyze massive amounts of data, smart cities like Busan are now creating an ideal environment to improve financial inclusion and to implicitly increase formalization and productivity of businesses. As information on energy consumption, traffic patterns, waste disposal, social media interactions, phone record etc. becomes available, artificial intelligence-based credit score engines can deliver more accurate credit assessments and further reduce asymmetric information between borrowers and lenders, thus facilitating access to financing.

Obvious hurdles – including regulatory challenges – arise with the introduction of disruptive technological advances and new business models. In this regard, The Connectivity, Markets and Finance Division of the Inter-American Development Bank is committed to leading the effort to adopt regulatory frameworks and public policies that assist Latin American and Caribbean countries to transform their ecosystems into smarter places able to improve financial inclusion.

The pace of innovation is inevitable and the power of data unstoppable. The potential of smart cities is thus endless and can improve the lives of many of those who remain underserved in the financial sector.

Juan A. Ketterer will be speaking at sessions on The value of smart banking: the operational key to making smart cities work and Tech SMEs and innovation: Boosting investor confidence in emerging and frontier markets at ITU Telecom World 2017 in Busan, Republic of Korea, from 25 – 28 September.

On the 27^th of September, I’m moderating a panel discussion at the ITU World 2017 conference in Busan, South Korea, on the theme of “The transformation of telecom operators: reinventing telcos.”

This is a topic we’ve heard discussed for at least the last 10 years in various forms, yet we still seem to be at or near the starting point. The panel will look at what can we do differently, to change the dynamics. In particular, it will focus on the internal organisation and processes of the telecom industry, both within and between telcos. Other conference sessions will consider new services, industry verticals, and the customer perspective.

Across the globe, traditional CSPs are trying to adapt their cultures and operational models, in the face of ever-increasing competition and substitution from new players. As well as other rival service providers such as cable operators, telcos now face challenges from Internet-based peers, niche specialist SPs (for example in IoT), and even enterprises and governments building their own networks. On the horizon, new technologies such as AI threaten to change the landscape even more. The nature of what it means to be a “service provider” is changing.

This goes beyond just implementing next-generation networks, whether fixed or wireless. While these are necessary, they are not sufficient for true reinvention – and they also require enormous new investment. The real question is what options exist for operators to best-allocate scarce resources (money, skills and time) to maximize the value from such investments in infrastructure. There is also a risk that emphasis on the “hard challenges” of raising finance, acquiring spectrum or sites, and building networks, means less focus on the “softer” problems of culture change, service design, organisation, customer-centricity and partnership.

This in turn poses problems for regulators, especially at national levels. Usually driven by domestic politics and local economic situations, they somehow need to ensure a strategically-important sector remains healthy, while also recognising the huge global-scale advances from many technologies and services that transcend national or regional boundaries.

It is not realistic for every country to have three or four competing local providers of social networks, IoT management tools or future AI platforms. Citizens and businesses expect similar functions to work internationally and immediately, with rapid incremental improvements. Unlike networks, innovation in services and applications often favours fast-evolving proprietary platforms, rather than committee-led interoperable services like the PSTN.

Telcos – and their regulators – have until recently been poorly-suited to this new world, although some are making interesting attempts to “turn the super-tanker”.

The session will touch on four or five key areas:

• Innovation: What is the best way for telcos to innovate, given regulatory & cultural constraints? Arms-length subsidiaries? Huge retraining programmes? Business units targeted on verticals / technologies? How much freedom should product units have, for example should they be forced to use the company-wide core network & NFV platforms, or should they be able to go “off piste” and act independently? Are “platforms plays” viable in telecoms, or just unrealistic wishful-thinking?
• Regulation: What should regulators be doing, to simultaneously encourage new entrants/innovators, but also allow telcos to make enough returns to take long-term investment views? And how can regulators deal with the overlaps, competition and tensions between very distinct groups, such as traditional infrastructure-oriented telcos and Internet-based “web-scale” platforms? One group has huge capex and strict regulatory constraints, the other huge R&D and greater risk of failure: how can one set of rules span both, where they intersect?
• Industry coordination: How do the current pan-industry structures (eg bodies like ITU & GSMA & 3GPP) need to change? Can they be made faster, more willing to take risks, faster to acknowledge errors, bring in non-traditional stakeholders?
• Technology catalysts: Are 5G & NFV really “transformational” enablers of re-invention? Or will prolonged hybrid/transition phases from older tech mean there can’t be fast shifts? How should telcos deploy technologies such as AI, blockchain or IoT internally, as part of their reinvention?

One other thing should frame the debate: language – how we describe the problems, or wider communications environment. Words, analogies and narrative arcs are psychologically important – they shape the way we perceive problems, and can either enhance or misdirect our responses. We should recognise the unhelpfulness of terms like:

• “Digital”: Morse Code was digital in 1843. Telecom networks have used digital technology for decades, as have most businesses. It’s about steady progress and evolution, not a “digitalisation” step change.
• “OTT”: usually said in a negative tone, I believe this prejudiced description of Internet services has hugely harmed the telecoms industry over the last decade. For example, it obscures the fact that larger Internet companies do more deep technology than telcos: they make network equipment and chips, build infrastructure and conduct billions of dollars of R&D.
• “Level playing field”: telco executives, regulators and lobbyists use this phrase with abandon. Yet the analogy is meaningless, when everyone is playing different sports entirely.

The narrative needs to change substantially. My ITU Telecom World 2017 session aims to reset the debate, and catalyse thoughtful (but rapid!) future action by operators, regulators and industry bodies alike.

The creation of Arcep in 1997 marked the end of an era: the era of State control over communications infrastructures in France. But let us not misunderstand: public authorities did not withdraw but rather reinvented themselves. Relinquishing none of its ambitions for the telecoms networks that are so vital to the life of the nation, the State was able to decentralise their operation, through the emergence of an independent regulator — the transmission belt between the public interest and the market — and through new forms of solidarity at the national and local level.

Twenty years later, telecoms stand out as a successful example of this new alchemy of public authorities, which uphold the interests of our fellow citizens, and public service requirement by relying on economic forces, local initiative, innovation. And the need for regulation only continues to grow, as the many recently adopted national and European Acts demonstrate, not to mention the postal sector which Arcep has also been regulating for 10 years now.

As enduring as it may be, this need for regulation must not prevent us from rethinking how we go about it. We have already seen it in other areas: the rise
of digital culture is ushering in a new era of government action, based on sharing and agility. Herein lies the very crux of the “360° outlook” in which Arcep has been engaged since the strategic review it performed in 2015.

Regulating with data

In a complex and ever-changing environment, it is harder to anticipate
the future, which can hamper the regulator’s ability to use its traditional toolbox.

But digital technology can also forge new channels. By publishing the right information, we can make every user a “mini regulator” who will reward virtuous market behaviour through the act of purchasing, and so steer the sector in the right direction.

Regulating with data is thus an approach that goes well beyond mere transparency. It means “unbundling data”, in other words looking for data deep in economic stakeholders’ “bellies”; or relying on crowdsourcing as
cities are doing with their “fix it” tools. As it works to promote the smart and abundant processing of information, the regulator may opt to become the hub of a “RegTech” community composed of specialised companies and members of civil society.

“Pro-innovation” regulation, continually opening new doors

Telecoms regulation has enabled talented entrepreneurs to access the resources  –  numbering, frequency, copper local loop, interconnections  –  they needed to build new networks and services, and unlocked innovation well beyond anything previously imaginable.

In the digital era, “pro-innovation” regulation will remain more crucial than ever before. Because it is almost always marginal players who discover and create new worlds, innovation must not be confined to incumbent players or pre-existing models. For the regulator, this means working to guarantee that the internet remains open, so that everyone can interact and innovate, without bias nor silos. It means accepting abundance and uncertainty, giving everybody a chance, creating room for experimentation and the emergence
of alternative models, inside or outside the market, free of all preconceived notions.

Sébastien Soriano will be speaking in the debate on The 5G opportunity: driving digital transformation at ITU Telecom World 2017.

This article was originally published in Medium.

Looking back a few decades and focusing on the previous generations of mobile systems, we can identify one common denominator which has led to success – global standardization.

Without open global standards, it would not have been possible to get the global reach and the economy of scale that have made it possible for a large part of the global population to access data and services wherever they happen to be. Having a global standard is not enough. To be successful and enable growth, you must also have other factors in place such as high performing networks, coverage, affordable terminals and attractive services and applications.

Looking forward we see the dawn of a new generation – 5G. Like the previous generations of existing services and applications, it will improve and enhance the user experience. But the telecom industry will also face the challenge of new industries using 5G networks in their ongoing digitalization process.

To set the standard for the next coming 10-20 years, it is important to define the requirements that will be needed. We cannot today foresee all the requirements that will be needed, but one thing is certain; requirements for different industries will be different, and that demands FLEXIBLITY. Interfaces should be specified to enable future services to be introduced, services which will fulfill future demands and desires.

Standardization is one process that will make this possible, but other areas also need to evolve at a similar pace. Technology, applications, standardization, regulation and the evolution from 4G to 5G need to play in harmony. New industries utilizing a common network will place high demands on regulatory issues that support innovation, but must also ensure that security and privacy are handled in the right way.

A challenge that we have in the standardization community is that specifications are not only developed in one standardization body. Future networks or 5G systems will include several organizations as well as different ways of working. Both specifications and open source software will be the base when developing 5G. Well-specified interfaces will be a highly important tool to enable a successful evolution.

When will it happen? Even though many organizations are involved in this, it is the ITU and 3GPP track that is the main vehicle and sets the pace. Current 3GPP work will be input to the specifications that are submitted to ITU, and we will have a commercial 5G system up and running within the timeframe of 2019-2020.

To operate and make equipment available on a global base, it is also critical to identify and make available global spectrum within this timeframe. Very good progress has been made in this area. Spectrum has been identified which indicates that it is possible to have spectrum for 5G available in the different regions in the given timeframe.

Once again: we cannot today foresee all requirements that are needed to fulfill future desires and demands. However, if we use global alignment, flexibility and high performance as guiding principles, we will be as prepared as we can for the future!

I look forward to discussing all this and more in the debate on The 5G opportunity: driving digital transformation at ITU Telecom World 2017 in Busan, South Korea, late this month.

What makes the world’s top executives cringe? From our latest C-suite survey covering responses from 5,247 business leaders from 21 industries it is clear that it is the “Uber syndrome.” They expressed their fear that a competitor with a completely different business model enters their industry and flattens them.

Seventy-six percent of communications service provider (CSP) executives expect more competition to come from outside their industry in the coming years. In fact, competition from outside has already been a threat for traditional CSPs for many years, with digital disrupters as Skype, WhatsApp and WeChat destroying the so profitable revenue streams from voice and messaging. These trailblazing companies have reset the expectations for customer experience and many CSPs have yet to transform their business models to respond to these new expectations.

In an environment that is in a severe state of flux, the ultimate winners may be either the new entrants that move and scale the fastest or traditional CSPs that are willing to adapt and change. Successful CSPs will need to deliver superior customer experiences, disrupt their own business models and implement the cognitive and personalized paradigm to secure their footholds in a changing strategic landscape and an altering industry hegemony.

Making this Digital Reinvention^TM a reality requires simultaneous progress along two trajectories (see Outthinking disruption in communications). The successful CSP will emerge as providers along two digital service axes: The digital services provider (DSP) and the digital services enabler (DSE).

As a DSP, the CSP delivers high-quality customer experiences through online channels. It values data and analytics – and will embrace cognitive capabilities to further improve the customer experience and its operations. To become a DSP, today’s provider must overcome challenges. Siloed processes and divisions are the biggest obstacles in implementing customer experience initiatives for most CSPs, but also not understanding what makes good customer experiences and the lack of the right digital skills are clear hurdles.

Along the other axis, the DSE recognizes the growing importance of ecosystems and the associated market opportunities. Though the key focus of many CSPs still is on connectivity services and selling products, we see an increasing interest in playing a role in ecosystems. In the digital world, what eventually differentiates winners from losers is often not the best product – but the right business model. And the most powerful business models are based around ecosystems.

In this year’s ecosystem study, 54% of CSP executives told us engaging in ecosystems is the most effective way to access new markets and geographies. Fifty-five percent believe that partnering in ecosystems is essential for them to build new capabilities. And though there are different ways that organizations can engage in ecosystems, 57% of CSP executives want the role of platform provider by creating integrated environments that support and enable ecosystems to operate.

New, compelling customer experiences delivered through ecosystems are at the core of Digital Reinvention. Indeed, 54% of CSP executives we surveyed reported that the experiences customers now demand can only be delivered through business ecosystems. Digital Reinvention combined with digital intelligence enables radical new ways of interaction with customers and reveals powerful insights that transform businesses. Together, Digital Reinvention and digital intelligence create a Cognitive Enterprise

Digital Reinvention reflects a fundamental rethinking of the organization, reimagining structure, operations and governance from a customer-centric perspective. It is not not an easy journey and probably the hardest thing for CSPs to do. But in today’s evolving landscape, Digital Reinvention and becoming a cognitive company is no longer a choice: It’s a survival skill.

I look forward to exploring more on this in the Forum debate on The transformation of telecom operators: reinventing telcos at ITU Telecom World 2017 in Busan, South Korea, later this month.

ulalaLAB is a startup company that envisions a world where happiness is driven by technology. With our goal of accelerating the transition into the smart future, we’ve set our mission to guide connected technology in the right direction by focusing on problems that need to be solved. And by doing so, we aim to change lives and improve industries around the world.

Back in 2016, we decided to take part in the ITU Telecom World Awards in order to win and gain more credibility – which we did.  ITU Telecom World provided us with a great opportunity to showcase our technology and capabilities on a global stage, and being one of the Award winners was a great credibility booster. For a startup, being able to prove yourself is a hard and challenging task. The audience has only a vague idea of how exactly your product works and what differentiates you from the others, so answering all those burning questions that our potential clients, partners and investors usually have, as well as getting important feedback from experts from around the world, was very useful and fulfilling for our project. We were able to get more from this event by meeting people from different backgrounds and increasing our business network.

In the past year, we have started mass producing our industrial IoT devices and increased our device portfolio, as well as considerably upgraded the hardware and software capabilities of our core technologies. We have signed partnership deals with many prominent companies and institutions such as Atlas Copco for joint ODM product release, Penta Security Systems for IoT security collaboration and Sogang University’s Department of Industrial Mathematics for joint machine learning development.

WimFactory, our smart factory platform has already been implemented in several factories here in Korea as well as Nike and Adidas shoe factories in Indonesia, China and Vietnam.

We are currently seeing significant business growth and are already in the process of expanding beyond the WimFactory business to other areas where our IoT device ‘Wicon’ can be implemented synergistically, such as in smart farming – our ‘WimFarm’ will pilot in China sometime this autumn. But as a priority, we are concentrating on strengthening our smart factory business with joint ventures in strategic regions and further R&D investments with Series A investment round funding happening in the second half of next year. We have added a regional office in Beijing, China, which oversees all partnership and buyer relations in that region. And we are actively seeking partners in North America and Europe both in terms of R&D and distribution collaborations.

We believe that there are still many small and old factories in India, Southeast Asia, South America and East Europe that need our technology. We aim to expand our business both home and abroad with any form of business cooperation (JV, business collaboration, branch, etc.).

SMEs are crucial for our business and even more important for ICT ecosystem. Comprising over 90% of all enterprises, SMEs drive the economy and are main GDP contributors in many countries. However, important shifts such as 4th Industrial Revolution remains largely a dream for the majority of SMEs. Industry 4.0 puts most of the industries in a dilemma in terms of cost, human power, complexity and time. Continuous innovation in the area of ICT makes it possible to address these issues by producing better and more affordable products that can increase productivity and the quality of production process for those SMEs, significantly benefiting the world economy itself as a result. At ulalaLAB, we aim to bring innovative solutions for all manufacturers whether they are small, medium or large.

With that in mind we are returning to ITU Telecom World 2017 in Busan, Republic of Korea, this September to further expand our global network and seek potential partners from strategic regions in Asia, North America and Europe.