Towards a sustainable and socially accepted 6G for society
Tuesday, 4 June 2024, 16:00-17:30, Room Galapagos
Session Chair:
- Monique Calisti (Martel Innovate, NL)
6G technology is in the making and the community of researchers, innovators and policy makers at work on this front have the unique opportunity to address societal and environmental challenges that 5G failed to effectively take into account. Future technologies shall be conceived and designed taking into account the values and ethical principles we envision for our desired society. One of the biggest challenges is to conceive next-generation networks and related technologies so that performance aspects (e.g. connectivity, reliability, efficiency, rapidity, cost-effectiveness) smoothly coexist with values such as privacy, safety, inclusivity, and environmental sustainability. Today, it is important to anticipate the transformational impact of these technologies on society and human communities, looking at our wellbeing and relational sphere. The projects organizing this session address the tension between technology performance while embedding societal and sustainable values into 6G by design. The vision is to measure success in 6G development, considering societal and ethical values through Key Values Indicators. The discussions we aim to animate at the EUCNC 2024 are crucial for technologists, regulators and policy makers ensuring the successful development and positive impact of 6G technologies on our economy and society. This is of direct relevance to the work of several 6G SNS projects and initiatives, like the 6G SNS Sustainability Task Force, the 6G SNS Vision Working Group, the 6G SNS Societal Needs and Value Creation sub-group.
6G4Society takes a multidisciplinary approach, bridging gaps among the public, non-experts, and industries in smart and network services to raise awareness, encourage inclusivity, promote sustainability, and establish trustworthiness.
FIDAL validates public safety and media use cases beyond 5G through large-scale user-involved field trials, developing Key Values Indicators for evaluation.
BroadEU.net, funded by the EU’s Internal Security Fund, collaboratively develops a reliable mobile broadband system for emergency services.
Programme
The main objectives of this special session are to:
Engage 6G stakeholders to actively participate in the conversation about societal and sustainability main challenges and priorities.
Present the work and activities of relevance undertaken by the three projects organising the session and others in the broader scene.
Gather input and feedback from the participants on the perception of 6G related to the topics of the environment, health, KVIs, etc.
Align on major relevant efforts at R&I, policy, regulatory levels.
As a basis for discussion, the session organisers are working on an Extended Abstract (2 pages), that will propose specific questions and items for animating the discussion. The ambition is to then extend it into a longer White Paper that will include the main learnings and insights from the special session and possibly contribute to strategic roadmapping and recommendations for future investments.
Besides one invited speaker, Dr Ilias Iakovidis from DG CONNECT, who is coordinating the work related to the European Green Digital Coalition, the Project Officer of the 6G4Society project will also participate in the session bringing the input of the 6G SNS JU into the debates.
Session moderator:
- Monique Calisti, CEO Martel Innovate – 6G4Society Coordinator (Netherlands)
Invited Speaker:
- Ilias Iakovidis, EC, European Green Deal Coalition (Czech Republic)
Panel discussion:
Ilias Iakovidis, EC, European Green Deal Coalition (Czech Republic)
Monique Calisti, CEO Martel Innovate – 6G4Society Coordinator (Netherlands)
Chiara Mazzone, SNS JU Office at the EC, Project Officer 6G4society (Italy)
Marja Matinmikko-Blue, University of Oulu (Finland)
Margot Bezzi, CyberEthics Lab – 6G4Society (Italy)
Flavia Maragno, Digital for Planet – 6G4Society (Switzerland)
Katrina Petersen, Public Safety Communication Europe – FIDAL (Belgium)
Structure of the session:
- Welcome and introduction to the session (5’)
- Keynote Speech (20’)
- Expert panel discussion (40’)
- Q&A session (20’)
- Wrap-up and closure (5’)
Throughout the panel, questions about 6G perception and adoption will be asked to the audience through SLIDO. The answers will be addressed by the panel and injected into the conversation.
Discussion items/questions:
- 5G and acceptance: lessons learnt
- How can a societal, environmental, and economical perspective be brought to technological development?
- How to measure the potential societal and environmental impact of 6G?
- Which Key Value Indicators are the most relevant? Which new ones should be defined?
- How Key Value Indicators are used within the context of the 6G SNS projects?
- How do we measure societal perspectives when they are not considered on the projects? How can we make it easier to look outwards from the tools?
- How societal value can co-exist with market/performance incentives(not just be a trade-off that always loses)?
- What are the main relevant regulatory and policy driven efforts to sustainability of 6G?
