Internet of Things tops agenda at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

DiploFoundation and the Geneva Internet Platform are present at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (2-5 March), and will be presenting capacity development activities at a showcase session as part of the Ministerial Programme on Tuesday, 3rd March.

On Day 1, the Internet of things and the keys to a connected lifestyle were addressed by five leading and charismatic industry leaders: Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance Carlos Ghosn; President and CEO of the AT&T Mobility & Business Solutions Ralph de la Vega; CEO of SAP Bill McDermott; Karsten Ottenberg, CEO of BSH Home Appliances, and President and CEO of Ericksson Hans Vestberg. The debate was moderated by Carolyne Hyde from European Business News at Bloomberg.

GSMA intelligence forecasts suggest that machine-to-machine connections will form 10% of global mobile connections by 2020 at current annual growth rates, or anywhere up to twice as many: two billion connections, under the right circumstances, providing smarter homes, cars, and workplaces. This represents an enormous market opportunity, but creating the right circumstances will take considerable vision, effort, and coordination. Technology platforms, networks, and providers of services and products to end-users will all have vital parts to play.

Nissan, a pioneer in electric car conceptualisation and production, concentrated their presentation on self-driving vehicles. A clear timeline was presented, which set an ambitious development for autonomous driving – including going as far as automatic lane-changing on the highway.

The AT&T CEO concentrated on the three main challenges of the Internet of things: security, privacy, and effortlessness. All three are absolutely crucial. And all this is happening with your own mobile phone, which he called the remote control of our future lives.

Letting people into your life by connecting different aspects of your activities, and that you are actually letting others into your personal life was the main theme covered by CEO of BSH Home Appliances, the largest manufacturer of home appliances in Europe, and one of the leading companies in this sector worldwide.

According to Ericsson’s Hans Vestberg, if we have smartphones, we have already been transformed, but now we need to change the industry. The whole logic of the industry will change. The speed of this transformation will only increase in the next few years. The keys to a connected lifestyle are system, scale/standardisation, and partnership.

More information about the Mobile World Congress is available on the event website.

Diplo’s Vladimir Radunovic and Tereza Horejsova are participating in the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, on 2-5 March. Follow this space for more updates from the Mobile World Congress.