THE metaverse, sustainability and green energy, AI, faster Cloud adoption prompted by the speeds and carrying capacity of 5G are the main technologies that will push digital transformation faster, wider and deeper into enterprise and society. This was the common conclusion formed by top tech executives on these trending topics at the recently concluded Philippine Digital Convention 2022 (PH Digicon).
Victor Genuino, ePLDT President and CEO, led a panel of top tech executives including Nokia Vice President and Head of Southeast Asia, Daniel Jaeger, and Cisco IOT APJC Senior Sales Director, Simon Rizkallah.
The panel, moderated by PLDT and Smart FVP and Group Head of Corporate Communications, Catherine Yap-Yang, discussed how innovations are expected to change the business landscape after the pandemic during the panel discussion, “Going Beyond the Future of Tech.”
“Enterprises have realized that in order to remain relevant to their customers, they have to digitally transform, disrupt themselves and the way they conduct business,” Genuino said, pointing to how digitalization remains to be fundamental for businesses to progress faster than what customers need or demand.
The Harvard Business Review confirms this observation. It predicts technologies like 5G, AI, and further developments in the Cloud will continue to be game changers, and front-runners for mass adoption in the next few years.
The metaverse, that digital space once thought only for gamers is also rapidly becoming acceptable, and useful with 71 percent of the world’s 79 largest consumer firms putting down stakes in this virtual world. This according to global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. The metaverse now does not operate only on a digital plane but has its equivalent in the real world, such as in digital twin technologies. Also challenges on sustainability are achievable through data-driven insights and innovative solutions.
Pioneering enterprises, like Nokia who realize that it is the critical technologies that are also disruptive. Operating in various industries for over 155 years, it wasn’t until the 1990s that Nokia focused its operations on large-scale telecommunications infrastructure, technology development, and licensing. The telco solutions provider has gone from ‘connecting people’ to now ‘helping the world act together’.
“Indeed, the tagline that we are carrying now is much bigger than the previous one,” shares Daniel Jaeger, Nokia Vice President and Head of Southeast Asia. “It has not completely changed, but…became a bit bigger. Yes, we are still connecting people with technology that we provide with the networks that we build and partners like Smart and PLDT, but it goes way beyond that.”
After 9 Nobel prizes in science and technology and 130 countries it is operating in now, Nokia continues to be a trusted partner for critical networks, committed to innovation and technology leadership across mobile, fixed, and Cloud networks.
Committed to their pledge towards an environmentally friendly and sustainable future, Nokia wants to lead the way on the global stage in making the case for digitalization as central to addressing the climate challenge echoing the call “there is no green without digital, declared at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference last November.
Jaeger echoed this commitment when he said, “Of course, we start at home, and the first question is how do we make the networks that we build as efficient and as green as possible?” The company has made the call for accelerated digitalization and green energy uptake and has committed to use 100 percent renewable electricity in its own operations by 2025.
“It’s not just a job that we have to do,” he explains further. “But it’s really a contribution that we as the communications industry, in a broader sense, need to do.”
ePLDT, on the other hand, has been an advocate of sustainability by pushing for greener data centers in the country. Genuino believes that sustainability starts with the customers. “They’ve been asking us difficult questions that push us to reassess how we run our business,” he says. “It’s our customers that drive us to be innovative in the way we build [our] data centers, source power and manage our operations.”
More than servicing its customers, it has been one of the PLDT Group’s core values to champion a sustainable future as it continues to build infrastructures to improve the country’s digital ecosystem.
From helping the world connect to ensuring that it does so in as green as possible, Nokia and the PLDT Group are paving the way for the future— in building a sustainable and transformative tomorrow.
