UAB hosts United Nations conference on Information and Communication Technologies

Experts from all over the world are meeting from 9 to 11 December to debate how to increase users' trust in the Information Society through standardised platforms that can guarantee privacy and data security on the web. Kaleidoscope 2015 is being held in the Auditorium (Sala d'Actes) of the Rectorat building and can be followed in real time on the UAB website.

03/12/2015

From 9 to 11 December, at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency specialising in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), is holding the conference Kaleidoscope 2015: Trust in the Information Society, with the participation of experts from higher education, industry, government and research centres.

Kaledoscope conferences seek to identfy emerging solutions in ICT, especially in areas that need internationally standardised platforms, and at the same time give a boost to those that can benefit insufficiently supported communities and citizens of developing countries. This year's edition will delve more deeply into the notion of trust and examine new ideas and research on infrastructures that can increase the security, reliability and predictability of citizens' interactions online.

“ICT has become a practically indispensable service in our lives, at the heart of innovation in such widely differing areas as energy management, transport, health, education and financial services, which makes it essential to have users' trust. Now, moreover, Big Data and all the developments around the Internet of Things (IoT) present us with an unprecedented challenge in terms of data quality and accuracy, reliability of infrastructures and the privacy and security of citizens worldwide", explains Remo Suppi, UAB lecturer and local organiser of the conference together with Pilar Orero, another lecturer.

Taking part in the opening ceremony were the UAB vice-rector for Research, Pilar Dellunde, the director of the Spanish National Institute of Cybersecurity (INCIBE), Miguel Rego, the director of Standardisation at ITU, Chaesub Lee, and the director of Global Technology at Telefonica, Enrique Blanco.

The present and the future of ICT

There are around thirty presentations in the conference, spread over eight sessions that explore how to build up trust through infrastructures (mainly wi-fi and radar), standardisation (including a presentation on drones), and the cloud, and present the latest technological advances in networks and services, data transmission speeds and security in the IoT.

There are four plenaries: on connectivity and advantages for digital clients, by Enrique Blanco, on challenges and opportunities in the networked society network, by Ulf Wahlberg, vice-president of Industrial Relations and Research at Ericsson (Sweden), on responsibility in the cloud, by Sian Pearson of HP Security and Cloud Research Labs (Bristol, UK), and on the role of trust and standardisation in innovation, by Eric Viardot, of the Business School of Barcelona.

Two more presentations are scheduled to be given by guest speakers. The first of these examines the concept of "trust" in relation to the infrastructures of the future and proposes a general architectural framework to guarantee it. The presenters are Tai-Won, from the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications Research (ETRI), Jun Kyun Choi, from the Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST), both in South Korea, and Gyu Myoung Lee, from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).

The second guest presentation, by Antonio Skarmeta from the University of Murcia, deals with user trust in the context of IoT, proposing and integrated design for handling security and privacy throughout the life cycle of smart products.

Big Data: getting ready for the data flood

Finally, the "Jules Verne Corner", under the title "Getting ready for the data flood", invites the attendees to reflect on the future of Big Data. Jun Kyun Choi, from KAIST, and Mahmou Daneshmand, Stevens Institute of Technology, USA, discusses how finding, capturing and displaying useful information from among a large volume of data opens up a world of possibilities but also brings risks and challenges.

This session will serve to debate the barriers to be overcome, and try to answer questions like the following. How can we trust the integrity, accuracy and quality of the data? What are the implications of Big Data for the principles that underpin the Web? How should data be organised (metadata)? Do we need new standards, protocols or data formats? What are the new ways of thinking about data to obtain knowledge from information?

150th Birthday of ITU
The 2015 edition of Kaleidoscope will contribute to the celebration of ITU's 150th anniversary, which will be held in tribute to the extraordinary innovation of the global ICT community.

“The story of ITU is one of international cooperation among governments, industry players, civil society and academic and research institutes. ITU has a proud history as a key platform for the international community to bring cohesion to innovation in the ICT sector, and Kaleidoscope 2015 will celebrate academia's immense contribution in service of ITU's mission to 'Connect the World', explain the conference organisers.