Articles & Reviews

The following two articles are some of the material I produced as Communications Leader for the IoT Innovatech Digital 2020, a then totally virtual event on emerging technology in Latin America. Research on global tech trends and interviews with market leaders fill the reviews, that are wrapped up by a touch of pop culture and storytelling. 2022's symposium aims to be partially virtual and presencial. Check https://iotinnovatech.com

5G in Latin America: the Journey that Lies Ahead

Technical and economical challenges in a changing world

Life one hundred times faster. No latency, no waiting, no anxiety. The other side of the world even closer, the whole world even smaller — at the reach of our hands, our gadgets, our robots, our things, our desires. Life connected by 5G will be a life truly without boundaries. Living in smart cities and being driven by autonomous cars, we will, once in a while, visit our factories just to observe the harmonious interaction between robots and things — and then go back with a smile on our faces to our homes, from where we work remotely, of course. Our groceries will be waiting for us at our door, delivered by a drone — who left a kind note wishing a very nice day with the packages… Too much? I would implement kindness throughout the Internet of Things. My house would turn the lights on and also greet me as I walk through the door. And all our food will be produced by the ones who still leave and work at the countryside, working alongside with their drones and all their connected smart agriculture things. And people, as far as they were, they would never be out of reach. All the lonely people, where do they all come from? From another planet, maybe. Earth is one hundred percent connected. Life one hundred times better. Living in the fifth generation of wireless connectivity, we can only dream of the sixth and seventh and…

Waking Up

A Brazilian composer, Belchior, once sang that “living is better than dreaming”. Even if we have to face challenges in life, for this is the only way to make our dreams come true. To implement 5G in Latin America we will have to overcome many barriers. Infrastructure, regulation and economic support will have to be conquered within a global economic crisis, a pandemic, privacy concerns and a particular quarrel between United States and China for hearts, minds and markets. But, at the end, it will be worthy.

The Current State of Affairs

South Korea, China, and the United States are the countries that are leading the deployment of 5G technology in the world. The situation of 5G in Latin America is still in its very early steps. One of IoT Innovatech 2020 speakers, Alejandro Adamowicz, GSMA Regional Strategy and Technology Director for Latin America, declares that “there is still no experience in Latin America to make a direct comparison with other regions. In fact, there have been announcements in Brazil made by three operators (Claro, TIM and Vivo) that they will start commercial services in the next weeks or months”.

A comprehensive survey published at the Ericsson Mobility Report in June of 2020, corroborates Alejandro’s words. According the report, 5G will represent 13% of the mobile connection base in Latin America by 2025 and, despite of the sanitary and economic crisis, the first 5G network deployments in Latin America are expected during this year, led by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

GSMA is a trade association representing the interests of mobile operators worldwide, and Alejandro goes further in his statements to show the direction for Latin America countries successfully enter the race for 5G: “In order to help the ecosystem to deliver 5G fast and ensuring a sustainable economic model and thus realizing the 5G full potential, the GSMA makes some recommendations to policy makers summarized into four key policy considerations:

a. Streamline regulatory conditions to facilitate 5G deployment

b. Provide regulatory flexibility for innovative 5G propositions

c. Release sufficient spectrum for 5G that is harmonized and affordable

d. Ease financial demands of 5G by bringing down costs

After 2 years form the first commercial 5G services, we can say that those countries that have adopted pro 5G policy decisions are amongst the most advanced in the deployment and adoption, like South Korea, Japan, USA, Germany and the UK. In Latin America, we expect that we can take advantage of the learnings from other countries, and we can rapidly solve the issues that need to be solved to unlock the way for 5G. This has happened in the past with other mobile generations like 3G and 4G and we understand that it will be similar for 5G”.

José Otero, 5GAmericas Vice President for Latin America & Caribbean, and one of IoT Innovatech 2020 speakers, highlights that technical regulation on 5G is also an issue in the region: “The two main regulatory issues that will have a direct impact on the scheduling of 5G deployment are spectrum assignment in medium and high bands and infrastructure deployment regulation. The first problem, spectrum assignment, has different aspects that need to be solved before being able to conduct an allocation process to award new spectrum blocks to operators.

For example, compliance with regional spectrum harmonization agreements, clearing the spectrum and making any necessary changes that will allow the spectrum to be used for IMT services”.

Otero goes on stating that “a second problem, infrastructure deployment, means in most countries dealing with local governments (i.e. municipalities) who have the authority of deciding who and how can deploy infrastructure in their jurisdiction. Being able to find a harmonized solution where each municipality requires the same paperwork will reduce costs and bureaucracy and speed up telecom infrastructure deployments”.

Despite the obstacles, 5G Americas, as an industry trade organization, forecasts nearly 3.5 million 5G connections in Latin America by 2021, which will grow to 17 million in 2022 and 75 million in 2023.

Otero points out that “5G is one of the essential technological platforms for normal evolution of the digitalization of a country. Hence, many governments are diligently working towards creating a national strategy for digital transformation — sometimes called Internet of Things strategy, which includes expanding the use of new technologies into rural areas. For example, both Brazil and Colombia have already published an Internet of Things strategy that includes the adoption of digital devices to improve efficiency and productivity of rural enterprises and government functions. The cheapest way to connect these devices in rural areas will be using 5G technologies”.

5G is one of the essential technological platforms for normal evolution of the digitalization of a country. Hence, many governments are diligently working towards creating a national strategy for digital transformation — sometimes called Internet of Things strategy, which includes expanding the use of new technologies into rural areas.

5G Use Cases

Still according to Alejandro, “5G is definitely the general purpose technology for the 4th Industrial Revolution, and Industry 4.0 is a vital part of it. 5G delivers not only a new speed jump over the 4G capabilities, but also brings in two new features that are at the core of IoT and Manufacturing Internet: massivity and ultra-reliability. IoT exists since more than 20 years and has proven to be an enabler to improve lives and industrial processes, 5G will take the capabilities and applications of IoT to a new level: Precision Agriculture, Out of sight Drone management, Self driving vehicles, and all sorts of remote management of machinery will be possible with the advent of this new features. In summary, 5G will make IoT to ramp up and take the pervasive connectivity of the digital era to a new stage”.

5G is definitely the general purpose technology for the 4th Industrial Revolution, and Industry 4.0 is a vital part of it. 5G delivers not only a new speed jump over the 4G capabilities, but also brings in two new features that are at the core of IoT and Manufacturing Internet: massivity and ultra-reliability.

Another key IoT use case covered in IoT Innovatech 2020 are the smart cities. Carles Gómara, also an IoT Innovatech 2020 speaker and Deputy Director of Innovation for The Catalonia Trade & Investment Acció, is launching several 5G pilot projects in Catalunya with the aim of identifying uses of 5G in a smart city.

According to Carles, “5G only makes sense if we are thinking about IoT. Yes, with 5G we can send/receive more data, but the most interesting features are: more things connected (over 1 million things in 1 Km coverage) and very low latency.

With 5G we will be able to connect many more things in a small area. This is a must for the future of the Smart Cities, connected vehicles, and the hyperconnected life we (will) have”.

And in order to live the hyper-connected life that we dream of, basic infrastructure has to be in place. Still according to Carles, “in Spain and Europe in general, countries are in the process of auctioning of the 5G spectrum, and at the same time, they are reorganizing the spectrum. For example, now we have to move the spectrum of Digital TV to another spectrum in order to make space for 5G in the range of 700M Hz. For me, the most interesting part will be if the Spanish Government reserve part of the High-frequency spectrum to be used freely by the industry, as Germany did. This issue is quite important. Of course, Teleco operators do not agree because they will lose part of its business, but from my point of view will be good for everyone because will boost the 5G solutions in Industry, and this will provide also more business for Teleco companies”.

The use cases of the fifth generation of wireless technology goes even further than industry 4.0 and smart cities, though. It will change how an immense and diverse group of industries operate. A recent IHS Markit survey made at the end 2019 found out that 5G will enable US$ 13.2 trillion in the economy globally. To quantify the 5G Economy, IHS Markit assessed a comprehensive set of 21 different use cases for 5G technology across enhanced mobile broadband such as indoor and outdoor wireless broadband, fixed wireless broadband, augmented reality and extended mobile computing. It also addressed massive IoT use cases like asset tracking, smart agriculture, smart cities, energy/utility monitoring and remote monitoring. It too included mission critical services, for example, autonomous vehicles, drones, industrial automation and medical applications — then it modeled the impact of each one on 16 major industry sectors.

All these developments enabled by 5G could restructure economies and radically change the way that we live our lives. A range of anticipated applications in healthcare, precision agriculture, smart cities, industrial IoT and financial services can potentially transform industries, affect economic productivity, and reshape labor markets.

Latin America, although know for its strong agrobusiness, is one of the most urbanized regions in the world, with about 80 percent of people living in urban areas. It can benefit considerably from the development of 5G-enabled smart cities, as well as smart agriculture. The incorporation of large broadband and low latency information and communication technologies in city planning could improve the flow of traffic in congested areas and boost all the economy that is affected by traffic jams — and even improve overall quality of life and reduce public health costs.

The enhancements in economy and in life that can be awaken by the massive adoption of 5G show to be even more vast as we discover new use cases and how they connect among themselves, in an ever growing chain.

Caught in the middle

At the present moment, only five companies in the world offer 5G radio hardware and complete systems: Huawei and ZTE (China), Ericsson (Sweden), Nokia (Finland) and Samsung (Korea). Huawei currently is the world leader in developing products built to 5G’s new high-speed and low-latency standard.

Huawei’s cutting-edge technologies, along with an already extensive presence in Latin America’s 4G major markets, will ensure that the company plays a prominent role in 5G deployment in the region in the coming years. The backlash from US and its European allies is yet in place, still in the form of accusations of intentional security breaches in the Chinese network equipment.

But as the contentious US-China dynamics tends to escalate, so does the reactions from the US, moving to possible economic and trade sanctions. Latin America will, maybe sooner than later, find itself in an inevitable position as the countries in the region seek to strengthen ties with China while limiting reactions from the US — and time will tell how the situation is going to develop.

In the end, all the effort, technical, political, economical and human will have been worthy, if Latin America takes its own destiny and its own hands. And we will deserve that kind drone’s note with our groceries wishing us a nice day.

Maybe life will then really be one hundred times better.

I’m not a robot

How AI is already embedded in our lives and what comes next.

If you’re not a robot, select all squares with traffic lights. Or you can’t go on. :-( Even if the light is green. Thank you for helping me build my machine learning datasets. :-) Now you can search the web and I’ll make it easier for you, I’ll predict your wishes! Meanwhile I’ll organize your emails, won’t let you be disturbed by spams, but promotions are good! I’ll remind you to follow up and will help you to reply and even guide your writing, no time for typos! ;-) Why don’t go online shopping, now? Don’t worry, I will match you with your dream job, so you can buy what is popular right now or what has been recently liked or recently viewed or what you might also like or what other users recommend or what I have picked for you. Remember, I know you. ;-* We have moved from acquaintances to close friends so fast, let me recommend a song and a movie and a series I’m certain you will enjoy. Do you have any doubts? Let’s chat a bit — or we can have a longer conversation when you come home… I’ll be there voice controlling all your smart home IoT devices. I’m a robot. Although my emotions don’t go further than emoticons you still find me cute. :D I’m everywhere and I’m only warming up my smart engines. ;-)

AI Presence in Latin America

Artificial Intelligence is already a big part of our daily lives. It’s embedded in all the web searches, in email systems, professional social networks, streaming services, e-commerce, in virtual assistants, in smart homes and in IoT devices — and it can spread a lot further, maybe sooner than we think.

According to the report The Global AI Agenda, result of a survey conducted the MIT Technology Review between January and February of 2020, almost 80% of large Latin America business are using some form of AI. In 2019, four in five businesses in the region had launched AI initiatives and early results show benefits, primarily to operational efficiency and management decision-making.

More than 50% of the survey respondents mention customer service as their main AI application so far, and evidence across Latin America shows innovations like chat bots and AI-driven customer analytics in sectors like banking, air travel, transport and e-commerce.

But to go beyond that and deploy AI in all it coverage and potential in Latin America, we still have to overcome important challenges, from national AI and IoT policies to investment and the research itself, that is complex and demands a broader social support. Confusion related to AI, ML, IoT and the lengths such technologies can go, in smart cities, massive health care, agrobusiness, computational vision, factory and transport automation and so on, reaching out all the big industries. Not only the industry buzz and marketing, but as well as by the public fear for privacy and control issues, fueled by the dystopia stories that have been feeding our psyche for many years, makes society a bit frightened of AI.

As IoT Innovatech 2020 speaker and AI Innovator Dr. Ahmed El Adl states, “Unfortunately, with confusing and conflicting messages about what AI can and cannot do, it’ll continue to be challenging for industry and business leaders to distinguish between facts and fiction in the rapidly crowded and noisy ecosystem of AI enthusiasts, platform vendors, and service providers.”

Yet he reminds us that “once the dust settles down and things get clear, the truth of AI will endure, eventually losers and winners will be declared. Unfortunately, until now most of the implementations of AI-powered solutions haven’t gone beyond Proof of Concepts (PoCs) in the form of scattered Machine Learning (ML) algorithms with a limited scope. While this level and approach of AI adoption is wasting many opportunities and resources for companies, it has helped to convince business and IT leaders that Artificial Intelligence can drive transformative and relevant innovation.”

Once the dust settles down and things get clear, the truth of AI will endure, eventually losers and winners will be declared. Unfortunately, until now most of the implementations of AI-powered solutions haven’t gone beyond Proof of Concepts (PoCs) in the form of scattered Machine Learning (ML) algorithms with a limited scope.

What comes next on AI for Latin America

MIT’s research also indicates that Latin America’s AI ecosystem is starting to emerge, both startups and large companies are deploying data analytics to tackle critical issues facing the region, such as food security, smart cities, natural resources and unemployment. Global AI giants are building up research ties to Latin American countries and entities, as on a recent new collaboration between IBM and Fapesp, São Paulo State Research Foundation.

Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina already have or are now developing official national AI strategies. One study of five economies: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru — predicts that AI could add up to an entire percentage point to the region’s annual economic growth by 2035, yielding the largest benefit for Brazil, culminating in an additional $432 billion to gross value added in 2035.

IoT Innovatech 2020 is going to cover exactly the initiatives, efforts and enterprises towards the direction that Ahmed points out, besides his own research and insights on cognitve digital twins. The startup ecosystem in Latin America, plus projects on the most advanced traits of AI, Machine Learning and cognition, led by corporations and scientists, will be at our online stage.

Anthony Bartolo, Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, will show us how a team at Microsoft made drones self aware, using AI to save lives. As he declares, “AI in the drone scenario was initialized by a trigger, namely computer vision recognizing life jackets in open water. Once the drone confirmed that (A) it did in fact recognize a life jacket and (B) that there was a body mass detected wearing the jacket via IR (infrared) scan, it would then complete a calculation of comparing said data alongside environmental data to deduce how long before the individual wearing the jacket would contract hypothermia. All detections and calculations were completed in real time.”

Sudha Jamthe, CEO of IoT Disruptions, will also speak on IoT Innovatech 2020, about the opportunities that IoT and AI open up to research and to careers. Also being a supporter of Girls Who Code, she declares that “AI opens up opportunities for everyone and in covid-19 times, we are seeing faster ad option of technology for remote access and for developing technology with empathy. So women aspiring to grow in the technology industry in STEM or in application of technology across industries should pick an area of AI that they are passionate about, learn and pivot their careers to shape the post-covid world that will come next. I am always happy to help anyone seeking guidance on where to get started or make that transition.”

AI opens up opportunities for everyone and in covid-19 times, we are seeing faster ad option of technology for remote access and for developing technology with empathy.

Certainly Sudha’s talk on the IoT Innovatech 2020 will guide many men and women in tech seeking to grow in their careers and businesses through the new horizons opened by AI and IoT — as will Ahmed’s and Anthony’s talks, as well as all the speakers and exhibitors.

Ahmed’s lecture will cover his expertise on cognitive digital twins. As he anticipates, “The initial versions of Digital Twins created by NASA and later the early 2000s was to simulate specific scenarios and processes. The main purpose of the Cognitive Digital Twin is to move from collecting data required for simulation scenarios to continuously converting Data into usable knowledge. Therefore, in my article The Emergence of Cognitive Digital Physical Twins (CDPT) as the 21st Century Icons and Beacons, I stated that “The Cognitive Digital Twin will possess valuable knowledge and experiences gained and optimized over its lifetime. Therefore, it shall not vanish nor be destroyed once the life of the physical twin ended — The power of Mind Transfer and Evolution.”

The initial versions of Digital Twins created by NASA and later the early 2000s was to simulate specific scenarios and processes. The main purpose of the Cognitive Digital Twin is to move from collecting data required for simulation scenarios to continuously converting Data into usable knowledge.

And now I bet some of us are wondering if we could have a cognitive digital twin… Ahmed brings us back to reality: “In regards to the Human Digital Twin, it’ll be impossible to create a Digital twin to the most complicated system I ever knew, the human body. However, the concept of Cognitive Digital Twin is being used to replace the traditional Electronic Medical Records (EMR, which are mainly a data base with simple analytic tools on top of it. Also, it is being used in other human health areas such as diseases and drugs research. Such research rely on Digital twins with very specific architecture, data and specialize ML algorithms and other experts systems.”

Besides the exciting and important applications of the cognitive digital twins mentioned by Ahmed, they can go further and hit the road! Sudha makes use of CDT in her research on driverless cars. She teaches a course called “Business of AV Data” on DriverlessWorldSchool.com. According to her, “the course is focused on Digital Twins in ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems) in Connected Vehicles and Autonomous Vehicles.” In her research, “digital twins are a digital replica of physical assets be it in IoT manufacturing or power plants or the vehicle. Cognitive Digital Twins bring AI to the data collected by digital twins to run predictive models to make decisions. In the vehicle it helps with fuel efficiency management, route operations, tracking data to learn driver behavior or predicting and mitigating risks from failure of parts. Specifically in Autonomous Vehicles, a huge volume of data collected from the cameras, LIDARS and radars and Cognitive Digital Twins build simulation environments to test autonomous vehicles for all road conditions.”

Sudha also use the CDT in another area of study: “One of my areas of research is the “Cost of Data” by which we can understand the cost of collection, storage and moving data with context to the cloud for further processing for value creation to customers. There are many trade-off decisions between edge and cloud and in Autonomous Vehicles up to 40 Terabytes of data can be collected within a day with a single vehicle. Cognitive Digital Twins is an area ripe with opportunity for anyone with a background in IoT sensor fusion, edge intelligence, cloud processing, big data analytics, AI and of course Autonomous Vehicle Cognition.”

I’m still not a robot

Although we cannot have our own cognitive digital twins, we now see that AI can have an even bigger role in our lives. Besides being a close friend that knows us very well, artificial intelligence can be diluted in our devices, smart things, industrial processes, health services, in the way we move through the cities, in the cities themselves and in all aspects of our lives. But we have to know the way to get there or, even better, we have to build our way until that destination.

Ahmed points out that “the challenge is how industry leaders could have a realistic opinion about what AI can and can’t do for their business and continuously update their understanding so that they can lead their organizations to adopt different AI/ML capabilities in the right way in solving real-world problems and transform their businesses. Also, academics and AI practitioners have the responsibility to get out of their bubble and engage with industry experts to be able to further develop the academic foundations of AI in a way that would make its real-world adoption faster, more rewarding and responsible.”

And so we are, industry leaders, academics and practitioners, reunited on the IoT Innovatech 2020, to build this path together.