8 November 2010: The second annual meeting of chief technology officers (CTOs) was held in Paris, France, on 29 October 2010, to discuss the telecommunication standardization landscape.

The meeting was attended by 23 leaders from the information and communication technology (ICT) sector and senior management of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), and resulted in agreement on a set of recommendations for clarifying the current ICT standardization landscape and addressing new issues in standards work. At the meeting, the CTOs reaffirmed that standardization is one of the essential building blocks of the information society, and of the global ICT networks that power trade, commerce, sustainable development, healthcare, education, literacy and entertainment. They called for immediate steps to streamline and modernize the standards landscape. In addition, the CTOs reviewed the implementation of actions decided at their first meeting held in October 2009, and addressed a number of emerging issues and their impact on standardization, such as: future networks and services; monitoring and mitigating climate change; and better early warning and disaster relief applications and services. They also encouraged the efforts of the ITU and the ICT community to tackle climate change.

Among the recommendations made by the CTOs to the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, were for the Bureau to consider the possibility of organizing an event on home networking services, to address, among other things, service requirements and migration, control and management, and new features such as ICTs and climate change. The CTOs also urged ITU-T to, inter alia, continue its work in promoting the development and use of early warning and disaster relief applications and services, develop a model for affordable and sustainable (wireless), and continue to take a leading role in the UN Digital Healthcare Initiative. [ITU Press Release] [Meeting Webpage]