世界工程组织联合会María Jesús Prieto-Laffargue主席在全球信息化论坛上的讲话

Honored guests, distinguished delegates and attendees, esteemed heads of the organizing committee Mr. Baosuin (Vice Mayor of shanghai) and Ms Haiyan Qian Director of UN DESA, let me express my profound gratitude.

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to share with you my thoughts about the pressing issue of sustainable urban development in my role as President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations.

Let me say that the World Federation of Engineering Organizations is the sole interdisciplinary international engineering Organization, representing the engineering profession, and brings together, not only, the National engineer societies from around the world but, also, the engineering regional umbrella federations of Asia, Africa, America, The Commonwealth, Europe and Arab countries.

The engineering profession is without any doubt the profession, par excellence, for the conversion of knowledge into social progress, as well as the profession par excellence for the conversion of knowledge into innovative engineering applications for sustainability.

Its mission is to meet current human needs while enhancing the earth’s environmental quality. Consequently I as an engineer specialized in Telecommunications and Information Technology, and, as President of the WFEO, don’t believe I could enjoy a better context than this Forum, here in Shanghai to speak to you.

The topic of the panel, “leading the way in the urban life of the future through ICT innovation” is very broad and our presentation time is limited, so I shall try to use the time allotted me to just highlight some of the most representative reflections.

In a nutshell I would like to draw your attention to three issues:

First, why do we need sustainable urban development?

Secondly, how can ICT innovations help to achieve that sustainable development?

finally, ICT applications and case-studies on current efforts in some cities around the world.

I. Why sustainable urban development?

The main forces-driving sustainable growths are:

- Reducing poverty

- Increasing social capital

- Respecting environmental ethics.

That is, to develop the three pillars of infrastructure:

- Physical infrastructure.

- Social infrastructure.

- Economic infrastructure.

As a whole, our Society today in September of 2010 faces four main challenges, (challenges which I have perceived in my international experience…):

- Demographic unbalances.

- Tremendous disparities in wealth and access to knowledge and resources.

- Changing patterns of consumption and production.

- Climate change.

Whether we like it or not, peace and welfare cannot be achieved unless these essential issues are properly addressed for all.

The upheaval in values due to the extent and severity of the financial, economic and social crisis that has affected every country worldwide makes even more pressing the need to tackle those issues. Don’t forget that those that didn’t have anything to do with the excess and mistakes that caused the crisis are the ones suffering the most from it.

Right now globalization must be all-inclusive, and this is especially important for certain regions, and for urban life.

Rural life is a dying way of life. As you are well aware, by the year 2050 only 14% of the population in the developed world is forecast to live in rural areas; about 60% of the population in the developing world is expected to live in cities. Right now half of the world already lives in cities. In Europe 80% of inhabitants are “urbanites” and in Spain around 70%.

Cities as economic, cultural and social centers generate important internal and external environmental impacts.

Cities are the primary source of global warming greenhouse gas emissions, and urban areas account for approximately 75% of all energy use.

Globalization and sharing knowledge in living together in concentrated and well-planned space, offers incredible opportunities but exclusion, grinding poverty and environmental damage create dangers and I repeat the ones who migrate to cities are those that suffer most, because they are those who have the least to start with.

In light of this sustainable urban development is no longer an option but a necessity, a matter even of self-interest, fundamental for mankind. This is increasingly true in the area of urban policy where the success of cities depends on their ability to capture the benefits of technology though the right applications and use of it.

Fortunately, today there is enough science and, enough technology to resolve almost every problem we face. For the first time in human history the entire world is prepared to eradicate poverty, to protect the environment while assuring economic growth, to improve our common welfare and leave a better world for future generations. These goals are finally attainable.

The rapid development of information technologies, the fast expansion of the information industry and the wide application of information technology practices potentially allow all members of an urban area,not only to be able to access to information and services any time, at any place and any speed, but,also to improve the efficiency of urban administration services, reducing the cost of offering them.

And this leads me to the second topic I wish to discuss today.

II. How ICT innovations can help

What are information technologies? What does it mean?

Why are they a pivotal element for urban inclusion, a key to sustainable development?

Although telecommunication networks are central to modern urban life, scholars and policymakers have largely ignored the relationship between sustainability and telecommunications.

Telecommunications can affect sustainability as a result of the complex, indirect effects that telecommunications systems have on mobility, land use, location decisions and energy consumption.

After the decade of the 80’s the construction of new telecommunications networks and advances in digital technologies has transformed the way in which we use information.

As all of you know quite well, this technology refers to the set of techniques, devices and methods which handle information by capturing storing, processing, transmitting, switching, exchanging and retrieving it.

They are made up of a series of basic technologies and system technologies.

What I mean by basic technologies are things like: microelectronics, optoelectronics, integrated circuits, semiconductor materials, and software, crystals: while system technologies would include transmission system switching systems, multiplexing, cable systems, fiber optics, radio, and satellites.

All of them, in addition to being soft technologies (they consume very few resources and generate little waste) present some common characteristics that I would like to comment on to establish a better understanding of their role in urban sustainability:

a) The capability to process in the same way different kinds of signals- sound, image, video, data at high speed- in real time allows us to produce new applications able to be used to, for example, diffuse knowledge, exploit the expertise of health care and training specialists located hundreds of kilometers away, and trade with strong cost reductions and high efficiency.

b) They are local technologies: they permit solutions to be adapted with complete flexibility to the end user, dynamically allocate network resources- and to pay for what is used when it is used.

c) They can be used in practically all social and economic activities of an urban community, upgrading each and every one of the segments in the value chain of processes where information sharing is needed.

d) They are technologies that cannot be bought and be useful right away. Rather, they must be bought and be adapted, assimilated and integrated.

They need human capital to assimilate them. Never in the history of humankind has the disparity gap between those which are able to use these technologies and those who cannot been so high.

This means huge opportunities to achieve sustainable urban development, as well as risks.

The model of city/urban community based upon these technologies should take place in each urban zone, minimizing their negative effects such as isolation and the lack of intellectual property.

The extension of universal ICT access to all must be achieved, and that is not easy.

ICT availability implies terminals, networks, telecommunications infrastructures, energy, civil infrastructure, security and finally, applications and qualified end users. All this involves difficult decisions to be made about investments and, what is much more important, strategic policies regarding education, long-life training and support for the systems, software and contents industry.

In this respect the context of each country and megacity could be different, so the approach and the policy must be different too.

Why do I say that?

Let me explain.

ICT networks have evolved since the end of the 19th century based upon three individual, separate networks:

- A Telecommunication network that switched voices.

- A television network that broadcasted vast amounts of images and graphic signals.

- A computer network which transmitted data signals that have been digitally produced and stored by computers.

This is where the difficulty lies in order to produce an interconnected city with universal access. Not one of the three networks yet efficiently integrates into a single network offering a the two-way digitalized support with switching capacity and the quality of services required to secure a high quality, up-to of date urban network where each citizen is able to benefit from the engineering innovations and applications that technology offers in our today’s knowledge-driven society.

The multimedia transmission and switching network needed by the knowledge society must boast bradband frecuency access to reach as many citizens and administrations centers as possible in order to provide the applications and services needed for sound urban planning and sustainable development:

- Mobility.

- Power and clean water control supply.

- Efficiency waste management.

- Education services.

- Health services.

- Trade.

- Public administration services.

- Air pollution control to reduce carbon emissions and accommodate growing populations.

Urban areas have to become more efficient. The challenge in reducing the carbon footprint of major urban areas starts with buildings and infrastructure, followed by the transport system.

Fortunately, digital technologies are experiencing rapid growth in functionality and a reduction in their costs, thus making their general implementation, economically feasible.

Innovative and more efficient engineering solutions are on the way which promise technical solutions to all different kinds of populations and demographic situations.

Technological Engineering solutions know no bounds and are limited only by the engineers’ creativity and scientific knowledge.

Advances in energy devices and the huge development of the nanotechnology industry are doing the rest.

Let me now move on to the last point I would like to discuss with you.

III. ICT Applications and case-studies

Consequently, with the role that information and communications technology are playing in driving improved sustainability outcomes, ICT applications and innovations represent today the top drivers of the city’s sustainability agenda.

1. Increasing social inclusion.

2. Increasing life-long learning and educational efficiency by recognizing individual learning needs at all stages of education, from pre-school to higher education. Don’t forget that mass production teaching techniques are “out” in the current environment and small specialized learning environments are in.

3. Mitigation of pollution and waste (smart building).

4. Greenhouse gas reduction (intelligent transport systems and electric cars).

5. Reducing congestion (traffic jams by multimedia conferencing systems and tele working technologies.

6. Boosting economic development (creating new jobs, increasing competitiveness).

7. Cost-cutting for municipalities (increasing internet access and offering municipality electronic services, monitoring and control of all the municipal assets, using online tools for effective communications to and from individuals regarding sustainability).

8. Integrating telecom providers into the planning process earlier in the urban planning stage, helping cities improve efficiency in the areas of mobility, work, buildings, energy, education, and health, promoting economic development by fundamentally changing the way cities operate and use natural resources.

It is obvious that one of the cities’ biggest challenge is “greening” existing buildings. Four of the five most cost effective ways to cut emissions (improving insulation, lighting, air-conditioning and water heating) has a lot to do with retrofitting measures for existing buildings.

Another one is the current traffic model and reducing congestion while increasing mobility in urban areas, one of the most pressing issues to shape tomorrow’s cities.

The major changes which will be needed to redirect our transport models towards sustainability will have to involve a process of the "decarburization," of fuels, more efficient vehicles and a change in our use of transport and our lifestyles, i.e., more efficient vehicles, different mobility patterns and the replacement of existing energy vectors.

At first glance it might seem that ICT's are only partially involved in these changes. However, they are in fact the main tool. ICT's lie at the true center of the transformation: the intelligent management of fleets and the efficient provision of information to facilitate inter-modality in the management of new hybrid and fully electric cars plugged into a network with a central control system are just some applications.

But that’s not all. The economical, extended and intelligent use of ICTs to convey information, rather than people having to travel, is transforming the way we work (teleworking, videoconferencing) and no doubt will change the way we move in cities. As such, they are the clearest contribution to urban sustainability. (E-working, e-commerce, e-health, e-learning)

Numerous analyses (Smart 2020, enabling a low carbon economy in the Information Age, The Climate Group) cite the profound impact of contributions by ICTs on the efficiency of processes allowing for real time knowledge of emissions and energy consumption.

I must conclude by citing the most immediate applications of ICTs in the area of urban sustainability:

a) Dematerialization of productive processes

b) Advanced logistical systems

c) Smart buildings

d) Intelligent electricity transport and distribution systems

e) New concepts of transportation (we must mention Israeli innovator Shai Agassi, who is generating so much controversy) in which the citizen would not buy cars but rather, as in the case of communications, purchase miles of travel in cars (traffic minutes), with electricity conveniently prepared at the most appropriate times for the electrical system, and where ICT systems, installed in vehicles, would be in contact with suppliers’ systems.

Due to recent and not-so-recent experiences in Spain in the cities of Madrid, Seville, Bilbao and Barcelona, these cities have already formulated their medium-term plans concerning infrastructure and more immediate services to be provided to citizens with a view to alleviating the difficulties generated by the constant arrival of people from other countries and other Spanish cities. All are seeking the introduction of new energy networks with centralized air conditioning, waste collection, the control and reduction of noise pollution, etc ... all accompanied by a new subsoil development/regulation model.

At the international level, Canada, Sweden, Singapore and the United States long ago began to integrate the deployment of digital telecommunication networks and broadband with the new and necessary process of change in urban infrastructure (Philadelphia, Stockholm, Montreal, Berlin are some examples).

I cannot fail to mention Mardar city (Abu Dhabi) as the pilot Project par excellence designed to be the first carbon free and zero-waste city in the world.

The Masdar city is being built from scratch, and will become the world’s first ecocity. 50.000 people are supposed to permanently live, work, research and do business using renewable energies on those six square Kilometers.

As “black gold” is limited, the Emirates are working hard to turn their “hot gold”, solar power, into a viable energy source.

Everything will be recycled. Traffic is to be largely removed underground, and there only futuristic, electric vehicles will travel the roads.

When speaking about sustainability here, this is not limited to technical and economic issues. Social aspects are also taken very seriously, since the eyes of the world are on this model project launched in 2006 to which the whole Emirate on the Persian Gulf has committed to the long-term goal of attracting and founding innovative, cleantech businesses.

This all remains to be seen.

One of the important achievements is the close cooperation between the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology-USA) To training engineering students from all around the world. In 2009 the first course for post graduates started.

In conclusion:

In light of these previous considerations we can conclude that the new applications of information and communication technologies can empower citizens and urban areas to participate in achieving sustainability reaping the benefits of an interconnected world but we have to bear in mind that those technologies cannot be acquired and assimilated without effort.

One cannot just buy them and use them. They need to be adapted and assimilated.

Information and communications technologies are intensive in engineering requirements. They are enormously complex technologies capable of being rendered very user friendly, but to achieve their goals society needs qualified people committed to the values of ethics, rigor, efficiency and sustainability.

The social transcendence of these technologies makes them instrumental and essential: this is why society today needs people with multiregional social skills capable of moving without barriers, conscious enough that the technology, the same technology, is used in different ways around the world. Engineers can no longer afford not to feature social responsibilities in their background and attitudes.

I would like to end by highlighting the responsibility that we, as engineering Organizations should take upon ourselves to attain that sustainable future for all as engineers do things which change the world.

As President of the maximum representative Body for engineering worldwide, at this time, I hereby commit to make our Organization better and to work side by side with you and society at large to bolster our knowledge-driven society and to set inclusion goals worldwide.

Thank you very much.