ITU Telecom World: Innovation, Growth, Green Technology – And Stronger Copyrights

The 2009 edition of a major United Nations telecommunications agency event opened its doors yesterday, bringing together government, industry leaders, and other stakeholders in a networking effort to address global challenges in the information society. Meanwhile, the head of the UN intellectual property agency took a shot at internet service providers and the need for stronger copyright protection.

The theme of this year’s event of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is “Open Networks, Connected Minds,” encouraging all stakeholders to share experiments and approaches. The role of ICT in innovation, sustainable economic growth, green technology, cyber security, and intellectual property rights will be recurrent themes throughout the week and the discussions.

From 5-9 October, the forum includes a series of panels for policymakers and industry leaders aimed at fostering growth in information and communications technology. An exhibition is also being held during the event.

The forum opening featured ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, who encouraged participants to network and to have “friction of minds” to come to the best solution to move the ICT agenda so that it becomes the leading industry to take the world out of the current economic crisis.

Francis Gurry, director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, said that ICTs are providing unprecedented opportunities for distributing and sharing information, but he asked how if the content is free, information can be an economic generator.

“The current model of copyrights is under severe stress,” he said, adding that the common objective was to “extract some value from cultural exchanges and transactions and return this to the creators and performers so that they can live a dignified economic existence, while at the same time ensuring the widest possible availability of affordable content.”

He suggested that some responsibility or liabilities might be put on the service providers, as they are “like the printers of the analogue world.” Printers are in the value chain of creative production, and we have to bring the service providers into that chain if we want to solve the problem, he said.

Investment in ICTs was emphasised by speakers, and Francisco Ros, secretary of state for telecommunications and the information society of Spain, said his country had invested heavily in research and development, telecommunications and the information technology in recent years which has given it better leverage to move out of the crisis.

Public-private partnerships were presented as one way forward by John Chambers, chief executive officer of Cisco Systems. Success in those partnerships depend on several factors, such as a clear statement of vision over the long term, a multifaceted and multi-year approach, and clear definition of roles and responsibility, he said.

ICTs also can potentially help other economic sectors to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals. “We have to be there first,” said Touré. We know that health will never meet the development goals without e-health, nor will education without e-education, he said.

Panels over the week will cover issues such as ICT infrastructure, mobile broadband, cyber security, rural access, new business models, regulations, and green technology.