The 15th edition of the Kaleidoscope academic conference took place in New Delhi, India, with a focus on advancing digital technologies to address unprecedented global challenges.
Kaleidoscope 2024 puts academic researchers together with the tech industry and governments from around the world to envision how systematic standards development and ongoing innovation can drive sustainable and inclusive development.
This week’s sessions explore an array of global standardization priorities, from vehicle-to-everything communications and quantum information tech to AI systems for healthcare and the Internet of Things for smart cities.
India’s Secretary of Telecommunications, Neeraj Mittal, noted the active engagement of young people in the packed hall for the opening session.
“To all you youngsters, who look like the majority here, the future of the Earth is in your hands,” Mittal said. “Maybe we’ll see some of you as unicorns in the next five years.”
ITU – the United Nations agency for digital technologies – could help strengthen “telecom productization” as countries seek solutions for global challenges, he suggested. “Good ideas sometimes fail to get off the ground due to mismatches with customer requirements or market-related criteria.”
Mittal urged India’s universities, tech companies, and research institutes to help ITU establish “ubiquitous and meaningful connectivity for every citizen in the world.”
The three-day academic conference runs alongside the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-24) organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Participants agreed on the need for international collaboration in setting global standards for next-generation technologies, as well as ensuring new and emerging tech is inclusive, secure, and sustainable.
“In our world today, we face challenges and threats that are unprecedented in scale – climate change, inequality and cyberspace threats, to name just a few,” said Deb Kumar Chakrabarti, Head of National Telecommunications Institute for Policy Research, Innovation, and Training (NTIPRIT) in Ghaziabad, India. “Tech is neutral, but its impacts and solutions depend on the frameworks we construct around it.”
Professor Kumar, who also chairs Kaleidoscope 2024, emphasized the need “to make innovation synonymous with sustainability and inclusivity.”
Making standards that matter
International standards help bring tech breakthroughs up to scale, a key priority for ITU when innovation produces sustainability solutions.
“Our standards are helping the digital tech industry become more sustainable, as well as helping ensure digital technology supports climate action across all economic sectors,” said Seizo Onoe, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau.
Onoe encouraged academics to take advantage of the opportunity to join ITU (where academia members are eligible for reduced fees) to contribute to collaborative standardization processes.
“Our expert groups will highly appreciate your contributions,” he said. “Our standards help bring innovations to global scale, and that’s why working together on ITU standards boosts return on investment for both academia and industry.”
5G and 6G networks, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and content-generation technologies all present significant technical challenges, alongside enormous potential to drive sustainable development, said NTIPRIT’s Deputy Director-General for information and communication technologies, Atul Sinha.
“ITU’s role in fostering international cooperation is more important than ever,” he said.
Recognizing excellence and young talent
Kaleidoscope 2024 received over 140 submissions of research papers, including some 100 from India.
Mittal, known in the Indian telecom technocracy as “Secretary-T,” welcomed the diversity of submissions, both domestic and foreign.
ITU will award cash prizes to the authors of three papers in recognition of groundbreaking research highly relevant to ITU standards development.
Nominees for best paper awards cover such topics as plant disease detection and enhancing education using neural networks; the cybersecurity of digital agriculture tech; digital health tech for the elderly; AI that supports people recovering from strokes; and technologies at play in education in rural India. They also cover innovations for quantum information tech, automated network operation, and fibre-wireless technologies for 6G networks.
Additional certificates of excellence for young authors aim to foster the next generation of innovators and consensus-builders in standards development.
Panel discussions on Wednesday (the academic conference’s final day) will highlight the role of youth in global standards development and the urgency of connecting the last one-third of the world’s population who are not yet online.
India’s digital aspirations
Kaleidoscope 2024 also puts a spotlight on India’s increasing prominence in the global digital ecosystem. Through initiatives like Digital India and Make in India, the country has positioned itself as a hub for innovation in digital infrastructure.
The host country is showcasing its advancements in 5G deployment and efforts to develop advanced technologies such as semiconductors for global markets.
On behalf of ITU, Onoe thanked India’s telecommunications officials, as well as the Kaleidoscope steering and technical programme committees, for helping make the conference a success.