Communications and Information Technology 2025
In the year of 2025, the world’s population will exceed 8 billion people. The stresses this will place on food, water, energy and natural resources will be dramatic. There will be double the number of Asian style megacities with more than 20 million people. Will communications play a role in either alleviating or exacerbating this endeavor? Of all disciplines communications has seen a radical transformation in the last 20 years. The extent of this transformation is suggested by the fact that telecommunications bandwidth has increased by 100,000 times since the year 2000; or the increase in the number of cell-phone users from two per 1,000 people in 1990 to over 500 per 1,000 people today; or the fact that Wikipedia has gone from 100 million words in 2004 to over two billion words in 249 languages today. In addition, social media is rewriting communications from personal, one-on-one discussions to the mobilization of mass rallies capable of toppling governments. While there has been tremendous growth in these areas, the pace of that growth continues to increase and one is left to ask the questions; where is it all going and what will be the lasting effects for our society?
These questions and others will be explored at Communications and Information Technology 2025, a conference that will bring together thought leaders from academia, industry and government. The conference will be hosted jointly by the University of California Irvine (UCI) and Tel Aviv University (TAU). The conference mission is to present and discuss the issues involved in the higher education of engineers and scientists in the fields of communications and information technology in the year 2025.
The 1.5 day communications conference will consist of morning and afternoon seminars, followed by evening networking sessions. The seminars consist of a topical keynote followed by a series of smaller talks. Seminars explore the traditional areas of mobile technologies, hardware and storage, and the emerging areas of cloud technologies and embedded systems. Communication professionals and technologists all stand to learn a great deal in these meetings and their participation is welcome.
Last but not least is why UCI and TAU? The answer is simple; both universities excel in communications and information technology education. UCI is located in Southern California, home to more than 600 telecommunications companies anchored by Broadcom and Qualcomm. TAU is a technological powerhouse in Israel. It has educated a large number of scientists and engineers who have launched companies contributing to making Israel the “start up” nation. We believe that the mission of the professors is to lecture, teach and educate the best possible scientists and engineers giving them a sense of social responsibility.
