Our opening session sets out a common understanding of what 6G needs to be or deliver according to the ITU, examining how other international bodies at the heart of the telecoms industry are supporting or building upon their plans.

Featuring

• Wanshi Chen, Chair, 3GPP TSG RAN
• Adrian Scrase, CTO, ETSI
• Alain Mourad, Head of Future Wireless Europe Lab, InterDigital
• Eiman Mohyeldin, Head of Spectrum Standardisation, Nokia
• David Lister, Futurist, Vodafone Group & NGMN

While the ITU acts as a critical unifying force, the principal drivers to develop an international 6G consensus and develop research capabilities have come from national visions for the future of their societies. Join us to understand where national policies and regulatory implementations align with the ITU’s goals – and, crucially, where they differ.

Featuring

• Micaela Giuhat, Policy Committee Chair, ATIS Next G Alliance
• David Boswarthick, Director of Future Networks, ETSI
• Tassos Lyratzis, Head of Spectrum Directorate, EETT
• Chi Ong Wen, Deputy Chief Executive, IMDA

Featuring

• Rahim Tafazolli, DIrector 5G/6G Innovation Centre, University of Surrey
• Max Lu, President & Vice-Chancellor, University of Surrey
• Milind Kulkarni, VP & Head Wireless Labs, InterDigital
• Magnus Frodigh, VP & Head of Research, Ericsson

This session presents the strategic thinking and aims, as well as practical activities, of some of the most active vendors in 6G. As governments and operators develop more clarity on their 6G needs, how are the vendors thinking?

Featuring

• Tong Wen, CTO Wireless, Huawei
• Dan Warren, Director, Advanced Network Research, Samsung
• Hao Bi, Senior Director, Communication System Design, MediaTek
• Matthew Baker, Fellow, Nokia Bell Labs

While the ITU is developing a clearer understanding of its aims for 6G, unless operators and their shareholders can see a return, 6G will be stillborn. So what do the operators need from future networks?

Featuring

• Andrea Dona, Chief Network Officer, Vodafone
• Maria Cuevas, Networks Research Director, BT Applied Research
• Kirsty Bright, Director of Network Innovation & Transformation, Virgin Media O2
• Takehiro Nakamura, Chief Technology Architect, NTT DOCOMO
• Alex Lawrence, Managing Editor, 6GWorld

Before the launch of 5G there were many predictions about possible use cases for the technology; but, years after commercial launches, uptake has been slow in enterprise, while revenues from consumers are minimal. Join is to explore what the point of 6G will be for consumers, enterprises and government customers.

Featuring

• Sylvia Lu, Board member, 5G-ACIA
• Andrew Murphy, Lead Research Engineer, BBC R&D, 5G Media Action Group
• Dean Bubley, Founder, Disruptive Analysis
• Pernilla Jonsson, Head of Industry & Consumer Lab, Ericsson
• Mona Ghassemian, Principal Research Expert, Vertical Industry Sectors, Huawei & One6G
• Colin Willcock, Chair, SNS-JU

The ITU has set out a description of 6G as a distributed, cloud-native, AI-driven network of networks capable of delivering secure services optimised to the application and customer. A market based on these principles could, and probably should, be very different from today’s – so who would provide those services and how?

Featuring

• Chih-Lin I, Chief Scientist, Wireless Technologies, China Mobile
• Scott Bicheno, Editor, Telecoms.com
• Kimberley Parsons Trommler, Executive Director, Thinknet6G
• Anton Monk, CTO Wireless Initiatives, Viasat

There is, understandably, a strong focus on the technology standards to enable 6G. However, there is a huge distance between adopting standards and delivering commercially viable services. This panel explores the preparatory work being done to ensure that the next generation of services appears as close to the next generation of standards as possible.

Featuring

• Oliver Korfmacher, VP Technology & Telecoms, ENEA
• Mosaab Abughalib, Senior Research Director, Keysight
• Teresa Cottam, Chief Analyst, Omnisperience
• Julia Ward, Principal Market Liaison, CTO Office, WithSecure

The opening of this Research & Innovation Day showcases national and regional activities in the development of 6G. We explore the overlaps between individual countries’ goals, and also make sense of tensions between global consensus-building and nations wanting to take a lead in 6G development..

Featuring

• Glenn Goodall, Head of ICT Research Portfolio, EPSRC & UK-RI
• Mitch Tseng, Research Consultant, ITRI
• KVS Hari, Professor, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
• Louise Lancaster, UK Department of Science, Innovation and Technology
• Antonio Franchi, Head of Space for 5G/6G Strategic Programmes, ESA
• Dritan Kaleshi, Director of 5G Technology, Digital Catapult
• Mike Short, Chief Scientific Advisor, UK Dept for Business & Trade

6G may offer superior capabilities, but these need to be presented as services to be useful. The complexity of future networks demands fresh thinking about how capabilities are developed, presented and adopted by customers.

Featuring

• Heikki Huhmo, Project Manager, Business Oulu
• Paul Ceely, Director of Technology Strategy, Digital Catapult
• Heinz Mellein, Technology Manager, Rohde & Schwarz
• Monica Paolini, Founder, Senza Fili

While the next generation may well include changes to the radio, there is an argument that the greatest innovation, and the greatest value, in 6G may be driven by a new network architecture. This session digs into some critical architectural developments.

Featuring

• Walter Tuttlebee, Founder, WSIT
• Matti Latva-aho, Director, 6GFLAGSHIP
• Tarik Taleb, Professor, University of Oulu
• Paul Crane, Visiting Professor, University of Surrey
• Alister Burr, Professor of Communications, University of York

The air interface for 6G is under pressure to take lessons from 5G and build on them. Higher capacity, higher availability, lower delays, lower jitter, lower energy consumption… the shopping list goes on. What, in practice, are we seeing at the cutting edge of 6G innovation?

Featuring

• Tim O’Farrell, Chair in Wireless Communication, University of Sheffield
• Arman Shojaeifard, Chair, ETSI ISG RIS
• Izzat Darwazeh, Professor of Communications, UCL & ETSI ISG THZ
• Henrik Almeida, Head of UK Research, Ericsson