Cloud & 5G - Day 1 highlights from the in-person stage

What a pleasure it was to welcome our speakers and attendees to TECH LIVE LONDON, sponsored by Claroty, this past week on Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th of June. 

To those who have signed up, you can of course catch all the speaker’s sessions on demand and there’s around a 100 to choose from.

I was thrilled as Technology Editor to support the event as a host, which was a great personal experience as I was able to quiz some of the brightest minds on 5G and the technologies that support its roll out and capability across every sector.

Here’s a little peak at what was covered on the Cloud & 5G stage on Day.

Edge compute and data centres everywhere

Data centres can often be construed as power-hungry, angular warehouses of blinking lights and turbine cacophony, but the sight of them in various portable forms will be common in future as highlighted by Tony Grayson, General Manager for Compass Quantum @ Compass Datacenters and David Watkins, Solutions Director @ VIRTUS Data Centres.

With great power required for 5G to reach its full potential, a decentralised data centre market will boom. As Mark Cooper, VP Edge Strategy @ AtlasEdge pointed out, data collection and storage will also move to the Edge and this will require a new kind of infrastructure.

Community and defense opportunities in 5G

Lara Maloney of Scotland 5G Centre and Hannah Griffths of Jacobs continued the discussion around the networks and ways in which 5G can be fully realised. 

From healthcare to autonomous driving, and waste disposal to reaching net zero through increased supply chain visibility, the opportunities are virtually endless.

Jonathan Cole, Director @ BT Defense and Lou Walker, Senior Portfolio Architect @ BT spoke of the growing cyber threat landscape and the power of partnerships such as the one between BT and the Ministry of Defence in facing this threat.

Moad Idrissi, Research Associate in Robotics and Automation @ Birmingham City University and Taufiq Asyhari, Associate Professor in Networks and Communications @ Birmingham City University were joined by Ceren Clulow, Digital Connectivity Manager @ Nottinghamshire County Council to discuss the incredible 5G Connected Forest, a world-first project delivering 5G connectivity to into a woodland area. 

Their robo-dogs Eric and Gizmo are playing a leading role in this push for a more sustainable and protected environment, and they showcased their remarkable agility live on stage!

Optimising the 5G network and commercial opportunities

Paul Gowans, Global Director 5G @ VIAVI Solutions discussed commercial partnership strategy, R&D and the future of 5G, how to reach net zero in the world that commands more power to run and network infrastructure challenges, to name but a few topics. 

On the customer experience and employee experience side of 5G, consultant Kamran Khan explained how CX and EX are converging through the distributed cloud and 5G for superior Service Experience Management.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in the realm of 5G

Nitu Kaushal, Managing Director of Intelligent Edge, Europe Region @ Accenture and Ceren Clulow, Digital Connectivity Manager @ Nottinghamshire County Council, opened up these three separate topics and discussed everything from the corporate benefits to the bottom line, how it impacts brand, the use of data in recruitment and the generational gap.

One of the key discussion points was also accessibility to these new technologies and ensuring there are concerted efforts to educate the workforce and encourage more rapid technological adoption.