Designs on the Games
Tuesday 7th October 2008
Savoy Place, London
Organised by PhoneAbility and the IET
Welcome
by Chris Earnshaw, President, IET
Thank you, John. It's my pleasure to welcome you all here on behalf of the IET, to our London home, Savoy Place. We really are delighted to be hosting this event with such a wide cross-section of partners from across industry, from academia, from the third sector and government, on this very important subject.
Some of you may be already members of the IET, and others perhaps less familiar with us, so I would just like to put the organisation in context for a few moments.
Put simply, our vision is to share and advance knowledge throughout the global science, engineering and technology community, to enhance people's lives around the world. I hope you would agree that fits very well with what we are going to be talking about today.
In more practical terms, it means we are in the business of promoting the exchange of information about engineering and technology, and encouraging excellence through a number of formal professional qualifications.
We work with engineering and technology professionals in inspiring the young to pursue careers in engineering and science and technology, programmes such as the Faraday Institute, where we work with school teachers in the UK to promote what engineering does for society.
Indeed, it's also part of our mission to engage with wider society, to promote an understanding and debate on matters of public concern and policy.
We act as an impartial adviser to government and policy makers on matters which may concern technology and science.
Savoy Place where we are meeting today is our London home. It's where we have our principal lecture facilities. But we are a global organisation. We've got offices in the US, in India, in Hong Kong, and most recently in China, and our members are distributed through some 127 countries around the world.
In fact we are the largest professional engineering society, organisation, of its type in Europe. We have something like 150,000 members.
But most importantly, our activities are not restricted just to our members. We are an open organisation - in fact we are registered as a UK charity - and we seek to engage the widest public audience in what we do, and also, as I mentioned earlier, to work closely with industry, with academia and government.
The timing for this event really couldn't be better. We've got so much going on and so much coming up, and developments in communication technology mean that we are in the midst of an ongoing revolution in communication and information services. And indeed, that was the topic of my inaugural lecture here a few nights ago, when I talked about the impact that communications technology was having on all our lives under the theme "connected lives".
Of course, it's creating services that are available wherever we may be. In our homes, in our offices, and increasingly out and about, on the move.
And if I was to pick out one technology that I think is particularly crucial, I think it's wireless that's having such a fundamental impact on the way we deliver these services and the accessibility of these systems. Wireless systems are putting information and services within reach of everyone in ways that we couldn't have envisaged just a few years ago.
The ongoing convergence of different digital media is allowing a pretty fundamental rethink of how information is delivered and presented to users.
Developments as well in the client technology, in the devices we use, are allowing major improvements in the nature of interfaces and the ease of use, and the ease of access to this information.
We no longer are constrained to access particular sorts of information on particular devices. Wireless based mobility means we've got access to services anywhere, any time, and increasingly on a range of digital devices.
Digital content - of course, much of what has been created in the way of new content and information, if not most of what's been created, is now in digital format - is increasingly available on all three screens. By that I mean the TV, which we've known for decades, personal computer or the lap-top, which is a newer innovation, and also now the third device, which many of us have, and perhaps most of us have with a screen - the mobile phone.
So it does mean we have fantastic access to information and services that just wasn't possible a few years ago. In fact we've got so much functionality now embedded in these devices it's often difficult to know quite what to call them.
Last week I think there was a new phone launched here in the UK by Nokia which has an embedded iPlayer. The software that enables you to see catch-up TV from the BBC. It's also got a camera. Whether you call that a phone, a camera or a TV - it's rather difficult. Perhaps we should think of it as a personal digital device.
So as I have said, these devices and this technology, the wider set of ICT technologies, is making information potentially accessible to a much wider range of people, and in a format which suits their particular lifestyle and ability.
Of course, this includes those who may not have full mobility, or maybe some other form of impairment. So convergence of technology, convergence of services, convergence of devices, really is a major enabler, I believe, to greater inclusivity, to allowing all of us in society to have the full benefits of these technologies.
I said it's a great and appropriate time to be discussing the subject. As John mentioned, we have big events coming up in the UK, such as the Olympics, and that's really going to be a great opportunity to make sure that we exploit these technologies to the full.
But it's not just about technology, of course. To be truly of value and to be able to include everybody in the benefits that technology can bring, we need to anticipate the actual human needs; the user needs, and understand the abilities of a very wide range of users.
I think, if we look back at how technology has developed over the last few years, whilst there are some good examples of where that may have been anticipated, and John gave us an example, in many cases it hasn't been thought out at the beginning and we have missed opportunities.
I think there is an increasing awareness that building that understanding in to the design of this technology at the very early stage really will enhance the benefits.
This, of course, includes the benefits and features necessary to support those with various impairments or lack of mobility.
Now, we have learnt a lot, I think, as an industry, as a society, from recent events - from the Beijing Olympics, from the Paralympics. I have seen already quite a number of reports that look at how technology has benefited the disabled in those events.
What's very clear is that the consumption of online information from those events has been phenomenal. Online information is information that's generally available anywhere and any place in a variety of formats.
I haven't seen the BBC figures but I know NBC recently in the US were talking about results of their online streaming content from Beijing and they reported something like a 600% increase in the amount of online content that was consumed from the Games compared to the last Olympics in Athens.
There are also some interesting and important issues that need to be addressed upfront that have implications for society. Issues such as privacy - about the standards of content; there are issues of media literacy, to make sure that we all have access and are able to use these services. There's not a digital divide - whether it be by age, ability, education or wealth. That's a major topic on the political agenda and one which the IET is engaged with to try and help government and policy makers try and understand the potential of technology.
So very exciting times. A lot that we will all benefit from - the whole of society stands to gain from the wise application of technology - and this event is very important in that debate, and sharing of knowledge.
So, John, I hope you have a fantastic day. I can see that the agenda is a stimulating event. I unfortunately have to leave before the end of the day but I am looking forward to hearing the first few presentations. Thank you very much. (Applause)
JOHN GILL: Thank you very much our next speaker is the Earl of Erroll who is a Cross-bench independent peer the secretary of the All- Parliamentary group on communications.
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