Second ITU Forum on “Creating a metaverse for all through international standards”
Time and date: 9:00 – 15:40 Beijing time, 7 July 2023
Venue: Zhangjiang Science Hall, Shanghai, China
Speakers
Salma Arafa
Innovation Specialist, World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)
Salma Arafa is an Innovation Specialist at the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and leads innovation in the regional office of the Middle East. In her current role, Salma empowers entrepreneurs in the region through the creation of initiatives and startup competitions while working to develop partnerships with key organizations in the Middle East region. In her work in the UNWTO, Salma aims to drive the digitalization of tourism and to contribute to the creation of an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems that will maximize the potential of the sector focusing on the Middle East.
Recently, Salma has been appointed as chairman of the task group on tourism metaverse as part of the focus group on metaverse under the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Prior to joining the UNWTO, Salma was a Programme Support Associate at the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). In her time at UNEP, Salma worked to develop partnerships within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, develop programmes and served as a focal point to key UN and non-UN initiatives. Salma has also held positions in the UNRCO, UNICEF, UN Habitat, UNHCR, and UNDSS. Salma holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Ryerson University obtained in 2019.
Cristina Bueti
U4SSC Focal Point and Counsellor, ITU
Cristina Bueti is the ITU Focal Point on Smart Sustainable Cities. She is also the Counsellor of ITU-T Study Group 20 “Internet of things (IoT) and smart cities and communities (SC&C)” and the Counsellor of the Focus Group on metaverse at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). She also serves as TSB/ITU focal point for Latin America. Cristina Bueti graduated from the Faculty of Political Science, Law and International Cooperation and Development of the University of Florence, where she completed postgraduate studies in International Cooperation and Telecommunications Law in Europe. She also holds a specialization in Environmental Law with a special focus on Telecommunications. In 2003, Ms. Bueti built on her academic credentials by completing a specialized course in peace keeping and international cooperation with special focus on telecommunications at the Faculty of Laws, University of Malta, before joining the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva in January 2004. As part of the International Women’s Day 2016, she was named as one of the twenty Geneva-based inspirational women working to protect the environment. She has authored over 40 reports on telecommunication issues. A native Italian speaker, Cristina is also fluent in English, French and Spanish.
Cheng Chi
Industrial Internet and IoT research Institute, CAICT, China
Chi Cheng, a researcher at the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, has been working on global standardization in the areas of blockchain, the Industrial Internet, and the Internet of Things since 2015. In the ITU, he was the main author of ITU-T X Supply. 31, “Guidelines for using object identifiers (OID) for the Internet of Things (IoT),” in ITU-T SG17， co-authored of ITU-T Y.RA-PHE, “Requirements and Reference Architecture of Smart Service for Public Health Emergency,” in ITU-T SG20， and co-authored of“The Reference Architecture of Industrial Metaverse,”in FG-MV. In the IEEE, he develops four international standards, including the “Digital Asset Transfer Protocol,” and participates in the founding of the IEEE Distributed Metaverse Initiative, which seeks to advance the development of standards for the Metaverse.
Jean-Dominique Coste
Senior Manager, Airbus Blue Sky
Jean-Dominique is currently leading the Blue Sky function within Airbus, which explores and validates strategic emerging technologies for the whole company, across the aviation, space and defence domains. He spent the first half of his career as a Human Spaceflight systems engineer, working on the International Space Station program with the European Space Agency, NASA and Airbus. He then led a series of Innovation projects for Airbus at large, before joining the Strategy management of the Defence & Space division of Airbus, where he developed international growth plans across APAC, US and EU, and supported the Executive Committee for various strategic exercises, prior to moving to his current role. He has lived in 6 countries and worked extensively in 10 countries. He has received Excellence Awards from NASA, ESA, Airbus, and represented Airbus towards many international organizations as well as numerous media.
Dennis Fu
Regional VP, China/Asia, Khronos Group
Dennis Fu currently works for Khronos Group as VP Business Development for China. The Khronos Group is a U.S.-based global technical standards organization dedicated to developing open and royalty-free technical standards in many areas including GPU APIs, 3D graphics, computer vision, heterogeneous computing, 3D commerce, AR/VR, AI/machine learning, sensor API, Metaverse, etc. Dennis has nearly 30 years of working experience in the global technology industry and has worked in senior management roles in MNCs including Analog Devices, Qualcomm, and Spirent Communications, in both U.S. and in China. Currently he lives in Shanghai.
Radia Funna
Futurist, Creator, xHuman Theory & Vice Chair, ITU-T FG-MV WG6, Security, Data & PII Protection
Radia Funna is an internationally recognized theorist whose xHuman theory explores the impact of frontier technology on people, institutions, and societal structures. She is the founder and principal at Build n Blaze, an 11-year-old consulting firm advising on strategy, policy, and transformation in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Radia holds leadership positions blending emerging technology and policy, most recently in metaverse related standardization at ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector’s Focus Group on metaverse, where she is Vice Chairman, Working Group on Security, Data & Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Protection; Chairman, Task Group on Building Confidence and Security in the Metaverse including PII Protection, Ethical Issues, and Standards; and Chairman, Task Group on Implications of People in the Metaverse. She is a member of Stimson Center’s Alfred Lee Loomis Innovation Council (a forum for technology leaders and policymakers in the United States to share expertise, build innovative solutions to 21st century problems, and consider the future of U.S. technology policy); and the Trust and Safety Teaching Consortium (launched by Stanford University’s Internet Observatory to share open access teaching material on online trust and safety). Radia is an informal advisor to the UN and an advocate of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Shane He
Program Manager and Strategist, Nokia
Dr. Shane HE currently participates in several industry standards bodies related with metaverse and Internet of Things (IoT), in ITU-T, 3GPP, oneM2M, etc. Shane takes leadership role on metaverse and IoT related standardization activities in ITU-T including Vice-chairman of Focus Group on metaverse, ITU-T Study Group 20 Vice-chairman, and WP1/20 Vice-chairman. She is also serving in the role of Chair of the Requirements & Domain Models (RDM) Working Group of oneM2M, focus on information model and IoT enablement for metaverse. As a program manager and strategist in Nokia S&T (Strategy and Technology), she is leading internal programs on vertical industry enablement, focus on metaverse and media ecosystem landscape, as well as 5G/5G-Advanced networks and new services to enable vertical domains (Industrial IoT, Smart Cities, Automotive, Powe Utilities, etc.)
Paul Higgs
Vice President, Video Industry Development, Huawei
Paul Higgs works with Strategy and Industry Development at Huawei Technologies where his focus is on video related technologies and application. Paul has an extensive background working with technologies used in the production and delivery of multimedia over IP networks and his activities now include the development of multimedia technologies, systems, and standards as well as their application in product and service offerings. Paul has held, and currently holds multiple leadership and contribution roles in standards and industry development activities including service as a board member, former President and technical work lead for the VR Industry Forum and chairman of the DVB Technical Module subgroup on IP related service discovery.
Shin-Gak KANG
Chairman of ITU-T FG-MV(metaverse)
Shin-Gak KANG is the Assistant Vice President of ETRI, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in Republic of Korea. He received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electronics engineering from Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea in 1984, 1987, and 1998, respectively. He joined ETRI in 1984 and is currently Head of the Standards and Opensource Research Division. He is also Adjunct Professor of ETRI School of University of Science and Technology in Korea. He has actively participated in many international standardization activities of many SDOs including ITU-T SG 7, SG 8, SG 17, SG 11, SG 13, SG 16, SG 20, GSC, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6, IETF and IEEE, as Rapporteur, Convenor, Editor, and major contributor since his first joining to ITU-T SG 8 meeting in 1988. He served as ITU-T SG11 Vice-Chairman and its WP Chairman from 2013 to 2021. Since 2004, he has been working as Convenor for ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6/WG 7 on Future Network. He is also currently serving as Vice-Chairman of ITU-T SG16, Co-chairman of WP1/16, and Co-Chairman of the CG-Metaverse in SG16. He has been appointed as the Chairman of ITU-T Focus Group on metaverse in December 2022 by TSAG.
Michelle Khoo
Center Leader, Deloitte Center for the Edge Southeast Asia
Michelle Khoo is the Center Leader for Deloitte’s Center for the Edge Southeast Asia. She brings over a decade of experience in advising business and government leaders about strategies for the long term. At the Center for the Edge, she explores the edges of business, technology and society, develops insights on how these edges will change the world, and helps leaders to personally experience disruptive technologies and chart pathways into the future. Michelle was the lead author for Deloitte’s recent report on The Metaverse in Asia: Strategies for Accelerating Economic Impact. Michelle is a member of the IEC Standardisation Evaluation Group for the Metaverse (SEG15). Prior to Deloitte, Michelle spent seven years at the Ministry of Finance, where she headed the social policy strategy and infrastructure strategy units.
Yong-Jick Lee
President, Center for Accessible ICT, Korea
Dr. Yong Jick Lee is a president and an ICT accessibility researcher at Korea Center for Accessible ICT, a research center that concerns information and communication technology accessibility for persons with disabilities, persons with age-related disabilities and those with specific needs. The research center is conducting research on assistive technologies for persons with disabilities, and developing tools used in rehabilitation treatment areas, including occupational therapy and speech therapy. Dr. Lee is also participating in developing ICT accessibility international and domestic standards through ITU-T, W3C, ASTAP(Asia-Pacific), and TTA(Korea). He played a role as an editor in developing ITU-T Recommendations, including Y.4204 Accessiblity requirements for Internet of Things applications and services, Y.4211 Accessiblity requirements for smart public transport, and Y.4219 Accessibility requirements for user interface of smart applications supporting IoT. He also participated in researching the status of mobile accessibility in Asia-Pacific regions through APT ASTAP. Prior to joining Korea Center for Accessible ICT, he worked as a professor in Jungwon University and JEI University in Business Administration, majoring in Information Systems. His current research interest includes accessibility services in disaster management services, accessible IoT and smart cities, accessible mobile applications, metaverse accessibility, etc.
Ming Li
Co-convenor, ISO/IEC Joint SEG – MetaverseCenter Leader, Deloitte Center for the Edge Southeast Asia
— Convener of ISO/IEC JSEG 15（Metavers evaluation group）
— Chair of IEEE Computer Society Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Standards Committee
— Chair of IEEE Computer Society Metaverse study group
— Chair of Blockchain Conformity Assessment Committee
— Member of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC40, ISO TC 307,
— Editor of ISO/IEC 38505-2:2018 Governance of data
— Lead Guest Editor of IET special issue on Metaverse
— Member of SAC TC590, Vice Director of GD/TC143.
Zhijie Li
Senior Engineer, Intelligent Research Institute, Chongqing Changan Automobile, China
Dr. Zhijie LI is an accomplished professional in the field of Control Science and Engineering, holding a PhD degree from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. Dr. LI embarked on a career at Chongqing Changan Automobile in 2022, assuming the role of Senior Engineer focusing on the simulation and validation of autonomous driving (AD) systems. Dr. LI’s expertise extends beyond technical research. He brings a wealth of experience in standardization, having previously worked as an Intern and Junior Expert at ITU-T, where he contributed to the work of security-related standards. Dr. LI was selected as the National IEC YP (Young Professional) of China in 2022 and was subsequently invited to join the 2022 IEC YP Workshop. Currently, he plays a vital role in various national standardization projects especially for the methods and requirements of simulation and validation on AD system, while simultaneously dedicating his efforts at international level, working on ITU-T FG-MV and ASAM OpenTEST concept project.
Shuo Liu
Working Group Leader, CCSA TC602 WG2
Liu Shuo, the deputy director of the Content Technology Department in the Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), is mainly engaged in technical and industrial research in the fields of artificial intelligence. He has wrote “White Paper on Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence” in China, participated in the completion of the first international standard for artificial intelligence chip benchmark testing and the first international standard for deep learning software framework evaluation methods.
Ralf Xin Ma
Chair, Metaverse Working Group, IEEE
Ralf Ma is an expert in the field of consumer electronics. He has worked in the field of consumer electronics for more than 20 years and led the development of a variety of products such as set-top boxes, PDAs, mobile phones and smart TVs. These products have sold more than one million units in many countries. Ralf Ma is currently working as the director of technology on VerseMaker. VerseMaker provides integrated and enabling services for China’s metaverse industry based on the world, and is committed to becoming China’s research and development, education and training, large enterprises, start-up companies and investment institutions. It is a bridge and catalyst to participate in the innovation and cooperation ecology of the global Metaverse. Before joining VerseMaker, Ralf Ma worked as a technical manager and principal engineer at Kudelski Group, OpenTV and IBM. Ralf Ma also assumes multiple leadership positions in international and domestic organizations, including the Secretary of IEEE Metaverse Standards Committee, the Chair of IEEE Metaverse Standards Working Group, the Chair of Membership Development of the IEEE Digital Transformation Association, the Deputy Secretary of the Blockchain Committee of the Chinese Institute of Communications, etc.
Julien Maisonneuve
Standardisation Manager, Nokia
Julien Maisonneuve works in Nokia corporate standards and was involved in NFV from the onset. He has been chairing the ETSI NFV evolution and ecosystem WG for 6 years.<br> <br>With a background in distributed systems and IP networks, he was involved in research and worked on fault-tolerance frameworks before turning to standards. He held elected positions in OMG, DVB, ITU-T, OpenIPTVForum, ETSI TISPAN, ETSI NFV and participated in 3GPP, ATIS, GSMA, NGMN. He was a reviewer in more than a dozen European projects.
Seizo Onoe
Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU
Seizo Onoe took office as Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on 1 January 2023. Known in the industry as “the father of LTE” (Long-Term Evolution mobile broadband), he now aims for global outreach to bridge standardization gaps, deliver the benefits of technology widely and speedily, and ensure meaningful and affordable broadband access for everyone. Before his election as TSB Director by ITU Member States, he completed an over 30-year career with Japanese mobile operator NTT DOCOMO. In 2021, he became Executive Vice President and Chief Standardization Strategy Officer for NTT Corporation and a Fellow of NTT DOCOMO. From 2017, he served as NTT DOCOMO’s Chief Technology Architect and President of its subsidiary DOCOMO Technology. From 2012 to 2017, he served as NTT DOCOMO’s Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President, a Member of the Board of Directors, and Managing Director of R&D Innovation Division. Earlier, he served as Senior Vice President and Managing Director of NTT DOCOMO’s R&D Strategy Department and Managing Director of the company’s Radio Network Development Department. Mr Onoe holds a Master’s degree in electronics from the Kyoto University Graduate School of Engineering.
Shuping Peng
Standards Delegate, Huawei Technologies
Shuping Peng is a Standards delegate at Huawei Datacom product line since 2016. Now She is serving as IETF Dispatch and Gen-dispatch WG Chairs, SPRING WG Secretary. She was deeply involved in European projects when she was working at Fujitsu lab of Europe and High Performance Networks Group at University of Bristol. She received her Ph.D. in communications and information systems from Peking University in 2010 and her B.S. in Physics from Jilin University in 2005.
John Qiang Peng
Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer
Mr. John Peng is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in IT consulting, services, solutions, and business management. His business expertise ranges from the digital strategy development, digital innovation to enterprise application development and global IT service delivery.
Mr. Peng holds a MBA from The University of Rhode Island, USA, a MS from the Institute of Scientific and Technological Information of China and a BS from the Beijing University of Technology.
Teppo Rantanen
Executive Director of Economic Policy, Competitiveness and Innovation, City of Tampere, Finland
Teppo Rantanen is the Executive Director, City of Tampere, growth, innovation and competitiveness. He is responsible for Smart City program and other major city development programs.
Teppo has been with Deloitte 2002-2016, last two years in London as a member of Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications leadership team, before that CEO of Deloitte Finland for 12 years
Before joining Deloitte Teppo was Nordic leader of Andersen Risk Consulting, located in Stockholm and prior to that in Helsinki and London.
Jean-Marc Seigneur
Director of the Certificate of Advanced Studies on Blockchain, DLT and dApps, University of Geneva
Dr. Jean-Marc Seigneur is the director of the blockchain certificate of advanced studies at the University of Geneva that covers cryptocurrencies, NFT and decentralized metaverse. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed publications in the field of digital trust, from the social to the technical aspects. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin in 2005 and his habilitation on augmented human trust at Reims University Hospital Center in 2018. In 2016, he got a Google Award for Excellent Research in Academia. Since 2005, he has been a Medialab member at the University of Geneva. He teaches to Master students digital communication in the metaverse with Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Web3. He has evaluated and directed multi-million Euros projects in the field for the European Commission.
Jie Song
Senior Engineer, State Grid, China
Song Jie is a senior engineer and the chief engineer of the power grid technology center at the State Grid Shanghai Electric Power Research Institute. He is a member of the ahG10 working group of the IEC TC114 Marine energy – Wave, tidal and other water current converters. He has long been engaged in research on digital twin technology for power grids, power system relay protection and automation technology, power quality, and renewable energy simulation and testing technology. He previously worked at Nanjing NARI-Relays Electric Co., Ltd., where he led the commissioning of China’s first 1000kV AC ultra-high voltage transformer relay protection equipment. The intelligent substation relay protection digital twin system he headed won the Silver Award in the first Youth Innovation and Creativity Competition of State Grid Corporation and the National Staff Invention Technology Award. He is chairman of power metaverse TG in WG2 of ITU-T Focus Group on Metaverse and currently leading the research on two ITU-T Power Metaverse technical specifications.
Neil Trevett
Chair, Metaverse Standards Forum
Neil is VP Developer Ecosystems at NVIDIA, where he helps developers harness GPU acceleration. Neil has been the elected President of the Khronos Group for over twenty years, where he helped initiate many metaverse-relevant standards including Vulkan, OpenXR, WebGL and the glTF run-time 3D asset format. Most recently Neil initiated and is now President of the Metaverse Standards Forum with over 2,500 member organizations.
Yuntao Wang
Deputy Chief Engineer of Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology
Yuntao Wang, Senior Engineer, Deputy Chief Engineer of Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute of China Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT), Deputy Director of Internet Governance Research Center of CAICT, Head of Overall Team of Artificial Intelligence Team of CAICT, Head of Overall Team of Blockchain Team of CAICT, Vice Chairman of Young Experts Committee of CAICT, Rapporteur of ITU-T Q5/16 of United Nations International Telecommunication Union, Vice Chair of Focus Group on Metaverse. Postgraduate Tutor of Institute of Telecommunication Science and Technology, National Science and Technology expert (Ministry of Science and Technology), expert appointed by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, expert appointed by the Chinese Institute of Electronics, expert appointed by the Education and Examination Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. His main research interests are focused on the research of new generation information and communication technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, standardization and industrial development policy formulation.
Zhiqin Wang
Vice Dean, CAICT, China
Zhiqin Wang is currently the Vice President of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and the Professor-Level Senior Engineer. She is also the Chair of the Wireless Technical Committee of China Communications Standards Association (CCSA) and the Director of the Wireless and Mobile Technical Committee of China Institute of Communications (CIC). She is also serving as the Chair of the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group and the Chair of the IMT-2030 (6G) Promotion Group in China. She has contributed to the design, standardization, and development of 3G (TD-SCDMA), 4G (TD-LTE), and 5G mobile communication systems. She has authored or coauthored more than 60 research papers/articles, and over 20 patents in this area. Her current research interests include the theoretical research, standardization, and industry development for 5G-advanced and 6G. Her achievements have received multiple top awards and honors by China Central Government, including the Grand Prize of the National Award for Scientific and Technological Progress in 2016 (the highest Prize in China), the First Prize of the National Award for Scientific and Technological Progress once, the Second Prize of the National Award for Scientific and Technological Progress twice, the National Innovation Award (once), and the Ministerial Science and Technology Awards many times.
Christina Yan Zhang
CEO and Founder, The Metaverse Institute
Christina is a metaverse pioneer. She started her master research on the topic in 2006 to develop universities’ international strategies. In 2012, with full scholarship, she completed a PhD in using digital twin in the metaverse to augment the AEC industry.
Christina is an award-winning business leader with 17 years of experience turning forward-thinking ideas into high growth businesses. She has extensive experience working with governments, universities, and business on innovation strategies.
She has sat on 20+ advisory committees for UNESCO, World Bank, Commonwealth, EU, and UK Governments. She is Vice Chair of the UN International Telecommunication Union Metaverse Working Group on Sustainability, Accessibility & Inclusion. She sits on TechUK’s digital twins board and advisory council of International Science Council on the future of science.
She chairs a weekly twitter space discussion with experts on pragmatic use of metaverse across industries, which is promoted to a global community of 100,000+ leaders.
She advises governments and UN agencies to use metaverse, AI, Smart cities technologies to improve the real world. For example, she recently chaired the opening panel for The World Intellectual Property Organization’s summit on IP and Metaverse and addressed UNESCO on the future of education using metaverse.