…Have You Booked Your Ticket Yet?
By MKPE ABANG
It’s not called IFA Consumer Electronics Unlimited for nothing: there, you get to see everything already newly produced and much more that’s in the works but soon to be released, for the consumer electronics and home appliances industry.
So, as they say all roads lead to Berlin, the iconic capital of Germany; but not just to anywhere in Berlin; after all, this city of nearly four million inhabitants has more than enough to show any tourist were sightseeing the main reason for a visit. The roads lead to Messe Berlin Exhibition Grounds for of the IFA 2019!
If you’re looking for a global show where consumer technology meets innovation then look no further; IFA Consumer Electronics Unlimited happening in Berlin this September 6-11, is the place to be. And, this show with history dating back to 1924, yet year after year, keeps recreating itself thus staying not just abreast of technology and technological innovations; IFA Berlin actually is the engine room and laboratory of many innovations that change the landscape of our consumer electronics and home appliances industry.
From the fashionable to the exciting, from the royal to the luxurious, there is hardly any high taste that’s not matched and surpassed with products on display at IFA.
But the IFA Berlin show is not all about home appliances and consumer electronics. In fact, the show has grown to be a platform that sets agenda for technology that is to come. So for instance, this year, leading technology drivers such as Huawei’s Richard Yu, CEO for Consumer Business Group, will deliver the opening keynote on September 6.
Japan, with foresight, is using IFA 2019 to launch itself back to reckoning in the technology space, having secured the plump position as the Global Technology Partner of the IFA 2019.
Dataism takes centre stage as construction of a new reality
Nowhere else more than at IFA Berlin, does the technology world throw up new concepts that in time turn to become reality. For the IFA 2019, Big Data is throwing up a new concept: Dataism.
The influence of Big Data on the economy, politics and society has been growing for years. The resulting opportunities and risks are the subject of discussion among renowned speakers within the cluster “Society” at the IFA+ Summit taking place in Berlin from 8 to 9 September 2019. The social consequences of dataism, as well as the interaction between humans and machines, are being questioned from a critical viewpoint.
The
same rights for humans and machines – when Artificial Intelligence devices
overcome the current limits of social interaction, for instance by passing the
Turing Test, they should in part gain the right to exist. Deleting their
program would subsequently raise ethical questions. This is the disruptive
viewpoint of Robert Sparrow, Professor of Philosophy at Monash
University in Melbourne. He focuses on new technologies and their ethical
consequences for society.
Through the growing influence of
algorithms, Big Data, KI and robotics on our lives, a host of ethical questions
arise. How can we handle these technologies? Which moral principles do we equip
Artificial Intelligence with? Pak-Hang
Wong deals with these questions as Research Associate at the
University of Hamburg, focusing on the responsibility of society towards
technological developments. Moreover, he is working with colleagues from
Beijing, Taiwan and the USA on developing an ethical compass for handling
digital technologies.
Social justice when processing data is what Lina
Dencik demands. Our lives are being recorded in data in ever more
detail, which is becoming a part of economic models and political control.
Personal information has become a sport for politics and business. Lina Dencik
strives to curb this development in her project Data Justice. The co-founder of
Data Justice Labs primarily researches the connection between media development
and social change.
Datafication of politics, business and society cannot be considered without
thinking of cyber security. Parham
Eftekhari is co-founder of the Institute for Critical
Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) and, together with his think tank, advises the
NATO, the World Bank and the US congress, among others, on digital security. In
2017, Parham Eftekhari was honoured with the U.S. Government Information Security
Leadership Award as the most significant industrial partner to the US
government.
The future forum at IFA, the globally leading show for consumer and home electronics, the IFA+ Summit and its numerous international speakers give an outlook on the development of the disruptive technologies of our digitally networked future.
Tickets for the event became available at the early-bird price of 499 euros until 30 June; after which time they cost 599 euros. Students however can participate for 299 euros.