IMC 2020, Day 2: The Virtual Event presented interesting sessions on Sustainable, Secure and Inclusive tech; 5G, AI and Next Gen innovation wave, smart devices of the future, among others

The second day of the India Mobile Congress 2020 commenced amidst much fanfare, drawing on from the echoing success of Day One, which had an inaugural address by none other than Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. Day 2 kick started with a premier Telco’s CEO Conclave on the topic – “Prioritizing Technology to Generate Sustainable Value.”

There were seven other plenary sessions, including, 5G Use Cases + IoT – Innovation for the Super Generation of Mobile Technology; AI on the Edge – The Next Wave of AI Innovation; Skilling for India – New Age Skills for Inclusive and Sustainable Careers;  Smart Devices, Redefining Devices for the future- *In association with MediaTek – Bringing 5G to Everyone; Security & Data Privacy Ethics – Trust, Test and Assure – a Multi-pronged Approach; 5G Regulations: Light Touch Regulation *In association with USIBC – Finding the Right Balance; 5G Broadcasting – From Fallow to High-throughput: Opportunities for India to Leverage ATSC 3.0 Technology *In association with Sinclair.

The second day of India’s largest digital technology event and the biggest international tech conference in South Asia, witnessed an overwhelming participation from global industry behemoths deliberating on subjects such as, international best practices in the realm of digital transformation, burgeoning exponential technologies, dire need of viable regulatory frameworks, smart devices and a smarter world, cyber-security, environmentally sustainable, inclusive futuristic technology, etc. The overarching theme of IMC 2020 is: Inclusive Innovation: Smart, secure, sustainable’.

This day key speakers included Mr. Ajit Pai, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission and Dr. PD Vaghela (IAS), Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Shri Ajay Prakash Sawhney (IAS), Secretary (Electronics & Information Technology), Government of India (MeitY) and Hon’ble Mr. Victor Fedeli , Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade , Government of Ontario , Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur; Brendan Carr, Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission, Mr. Shashi Shekhar Vempati, CEO, Prasar Bharti,  Ms. Monica Desai, Director Public Policy, Facebook; Mr. Rob Weisbord, President – Broadcast, Sinclair, Mr. Nunzio Mirtillo, Senior Vice President and Head of Market Area South East Asia, Oceania & India, Ericsson; Mr. Bruce McClelland, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ribbon Communications and Ms. Marjet Andriesse, President and Chief Executive Officer, Red Hat

Nunzio Mirtillo , Head of Ericsson South east Asia , Oceania and India , “We are convinced that high-speed mobile connectivity like 5G will be instrumental in providing a stable platform for innovation and economic growth, and especially  when we factor in the big potential of digitalizing industry verticals . Based on 5G Business potential study for India, the business opportunity of leveraging 5G to digitalize industries for Indian operators stands at 17 Bn $ by 2030 , with Manufacturing, Healthcare and Energy and Utilities expected to be the Top 3 contributors .”

STL made two key announcements today at IMC 2020 – The launch of STL’s Wi-Fi6 solution and a global ecosystem for developing 5G multi-band macro radios. Speaking about these announcements, Dr. Badri Gomatam, Group CTO, STL, said “STL’s Wi-Fi 6 Access Point, launched today by Sushil Rawat, VP RAN Platform, Rakuten Mobile, will provide high speed and low latency communications in high-density environments and shape the future of public connectivity.  On the other hand, STL’s initiative to build a global ecosystem for 5G multi-band radio will ensure reliable and scalable deployment of Open RAN radio units and small cells, thereby enabling operators to confidently speed up large-scale deployments of 4G and 5G”

P Balaji – Chief Regulatory and Corporate Affairs Officer, Vi, “Massive Mimo, Cloud-based Networking & Network Function Virtualization are some of the technology interventions that Vi has undertaken, to ensure that Indian consumers are getting the best possible service at affordable prices. If the aspiration of customers is to add more & more to their digital life, as an industry, we have to use technology interventions. Each telecom player has invested a huge amount of money to drive the industry forward for the citizens’ benefit. The telecom industry has continued to support the digital journey of the country.”

Mylaraiah J N, Director – Sales Enterprise, India & SAARC, CommScope, “Data centers will play a central role in India’s digital transformation journey including unlocking the benefits of 5G. The adoption of cloud computing and new age technologies for high-resolution cloud gaming, industrial IoT process control and onsite augmented reality guidance for workers amongst others and the need to process the data from such applications close by will drive the demand for data centers. The benefits of 5G’s super high speed, low latency and machine-to-machine communications will drive deployment of billions of edge-based connected devices and create the need for flexible user-centric networks. To deal with the data crush, networks will rely heavily on virtualized architectures like network slicing, and other cloud-based technologies such as AI and machine-type learning. Moreover, new business models will emerge from data centers’ growing role in all commerce, empowering them to leverage the cloud architectures, embrace low-latency edge computing, achieve 400G bandwidth, and more.”