17th May is celebrated as the World Telecommunications and InternetSociety Day globally. This date marks the celebration of the constant evolution of one of the most important factors of our lives: communication.
The theme for each year is set by ITU (International Telegraph Union), with 2017 celebrating “Big Data for Big Impact”, focusing on the power of Big Data for development and aims to explore how to turn imperfect, complex and often unstructured data into actionable information in a development context.
The purpose of this is to highlight the importance of communication, and how information travels across the world, while at the same time increasing awareness on how crucial communication is in our lives, and stimulate the development of technologies in the field.
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According to ITU:
“The theme for WTISD-17 is in line with ITU’s work highlighting the technological developments that have facilitated the emergence of Big Data, developing standards related to Big Data and identifying sources and uses of Big Data, including use of Big Data technologies for developing and monitoring improvements in information societies. Activities undertaken by the ITU Membership will contribute towards building political momentum to embrace Big Data and leverage insights to identify new opportunities to creatively address sustainable development challenges.”
Chronicles of Telecom
The World Telecommunications Day is in tight connections with the International Telegraph Union (ITU), the committee formed in 1865 to support the emerging communication methods of the time.
ITU is witness to all the great breakthroughs in communication – the invention of the telephone in 1876, the launch of the first satellite in 1957 and, ultimately, the birth of the Internet in the 60s. Even though The International Telegraph Union has since changed its name to International Telecommunications Union, it still remains the most important entity in the field of communications, thus remaining in the spotlight at World Telecommunications Day.
Image source: ITU
