Results have been published from the 2018 challenge organized by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), IEEE, and the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS), which called for academic papers addressing “Future Challenges in Standardization.” The organizations sought participation from leading professors and researchers from the fields of technology and engineering, economics, social science, policy and the law to share diverse perspectives and insights on the future role of standardization and conformity assessment.
“This year’s competition saw unique and thought-provoking submissions that addressed future challenges to standardization where the intersection of rapidly advancing innovation and the growth of complex, interdependent systems have become key influencers in the standards development process,” said Robert Craig, IEEE Standards University program manager.
The contest culminated with winning papers being presented at the 2018 IEC General Meeting in Busan, Korea, 22-23 October 2018, followed by an official award ceremony held 26 October during the IEC Council Open Session. Winners were selected based on the quality of the analysis and the originality of the research and received monetary prizes of $20,000 for first place, $15,000 for second place and $6,000 each for third place.
2018 IEC-IEEE-KATS Challenge Winners include:
First Place
“New Rules for Standard-Setting and New Roles of Standardization Bodies in the era of IoT”
Doyoung Eom and Heejin Lee from Yonsei University in South Korea and Dong-hyu Kim from the University of Glasgow outlined how so-called ‘standard-clashes’ are no longer between those in the same industry but instead between different industry sectors. The authors provided case studies in the areas of electrical vehicle charging and connected car communication systems.
Second Place
Kai Jakobs from RWTH Aachen University in Germany was awarded for his paper on smart standardization, where he outlines the difficulty of standardization for ‘smart’ systems such as smart cities and proposes the establishment of a ‘smart’ system single sign-on (SSO).
Third Place (3 winners)
Kanika Singh and Hoseong Daniel Lee from the American Bureau of Shipping for detailing the need for electrical measurement data management standards in the oil and gas industries.
Daniel Masso-Aguado and Luis Diaz-Balteiro from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid for exploring the implementation of a synthetic index to measure the degree of standardization in a given country.
Yongrae Cho, Hyunjun Park and Eunji Mok from the Science and Technology Policy Institute together with Jeongno Lee from the Korea Electronics Technology Institute for identifying knowledge and technology flows between standard making communities and how they can be used to indicate industry changes.
To explore IEEE grant opportunities for standards-based design projects, please visit the IEEE Standards University Students Grants page.