Accelerating the emergence of emerging technologies [Emerging Technologies Committee: Letter from the Chair]

Following the first column, “Promoting Emerging Technologies in ComSoc” in October 2013, and the second column, “Nurturing Emerging Technologies in Clouds” in November 2014, this column is aimed at further accelerating the emergence of emerging technologies. Emerging technologies, as the name shows, should still be emerging from, or only recently emerged from, the research base. In other words, emerging technologies, in particular in our information and communication field, should be up-to-date by nature and therefore should not remain in that category for a long time. However, the reality is that the number of ComSoc subcommittees on emerging technologies is growing quite fast, and some of them have been there for quite a long time (e.g., nine years since establishment). On one hand, every year there are new and interesting technical areas being proposed, which leads to increasing numbers of subcommittees. On the other hand, it also leads to more and more overlap with existing committees and/or subcommittees; hence, management of them becomes a challenge. A key question then arises: what is a good number of emerging subcommittees in our field, and how can we better accelerate the emergence of emerging technologies?