On December 3rd, the student incubator at KTH, Student Inc, launched the initiative SIG-ICT, supported by EIT ICT Labs, to bring together people passionate about the ICT field, to build a platform to discuss from which future research hopefully can evolve. The aim is to organise at least two events per year based on the new trends in ICT.
The first networking event by SIG ICT had the theme THE NEXT BIG THING? It was organised as a panel discussion with researchers at KTH, industry representatives and students on the future trends in ICT, the participants current research and the challenges in their projects.
The four panel members were selected to represent the KTH research labs co-located with the Stockholm CLC - Professor Lena Wosinska, Head of Optical Networks Lab, Researcher Ki Won Sung, Wireless@KTH and Assistant Professor Guowang Miao, Radiosystem Lab. A representative from Ericsson working on the 5G project was also able to join us in the discussion - Senior Expert on Radio Access Technologies, Erik Dahlman.
The discussion about the next big technology in ICT presented ideas from both the fixed networks and wireless field and how they complement each other in the future trends and research. Since most of the panel members are researching the coming 5G technology, the applications for this, the challenges in the research, i.e how to make it cost effective were hot topics.
Another main point brought forward by the audience was how much of the researches at universities is carried out in collaboration with industry and the advantages and disadvantages of this. The discussion were vivid and the panelists were really happy and surprised by how informed the students were about the ongoing research and how directed and precise the questions were.
The students were inspired by the panelists and the concluding networking session gave them a chance to meet the researchers individually and build important connections. Maybe there were important contacts established for The Next Big Thing which was what SIG_ICT aimed for.
