Ensure 6G kick‑off meeting at Oulu University

The project held a productive in-person project kick-off meeting in Oulu, Finland, on February 20-21, 2024. Collaborators, including the University of Oulu, Mid Sweden University, Starbit, and Solita, convened in Oulu to strategize on project activities, impact, and relevance to the regions. The team organized an array of activities, including following up the discussion on potential use cases in industrial logistics, their connectivity needs and challenges, innovative technologies, and in-device/edge multi-modal data fusion solutions. The meeting also outlined potential directions for joint testbeds, measurements, and demonstrations.

− Even though we have been working together in the project since its official launch in September 2023, the face-to-face meeting was a great opportunity for the project partners to meet each other, brainstorm on the research direction, and plan for the project’s demos. I feel that the synergy among the project team reached a new level after the exciting and inspiring meeting, says Dr. Nurul Huda Mahmood, project leader.  

The other highlights of this meet-up are the sustainable development goals (SDGs) workshop, curated by the project’s technical coordinator Assistant Prof. Aamir Mahmood from Mid Sweden University, Dr. Marja Matinmikko-Blue, Director of Sustainability and Regulation at 6G Flagship at the University of Oulu presented a keynote talk on incorporating the UN SDGs in ICT research projects. The workshop also included brainstorming activities that culminated in identifying the UN SDGs relevant to ENSURE-6G. The UN SDG pyramid of ENSURE-6G was created as the final outcome of this interactive workshop.

Assistant Prof. Aamir Mahmood from Mid Sweden University at the sustainable development goals workshop.

− More than choice, it’s becoming a necessity to develop, communicate, and incorporate a common view of sustainability into our ICT projects. The workshop showed how everyone has diverging views on this, while with a discussion, a common picture and strategy appear quickly. Also, this workshop was vital to identify the primary SDGs as well as specific targets and indicators for our project ENSURE 6G, says Dr. Aamir Mahmood from Mid Sweden University.

Another highlight of this project meeting is the workshop jointly organized with the Interreg Aurora Arctic 6G project, where the two themes of “Connecting the Unconnected” and “Unlocking the Stranded Industrial Values” aligned perfectly for connectivity challenges in rural areas. This workshop was open to all researchers at the Centre for Wireless Communications at the University of Oulu, which attracted a large audience. The diverse program of this workshop included three keynotes along with short overviews of the two projects. In the first keynote, Prof Gunes Karabulut from Polytechnique Montreal discussed HAPS enabled Space Air Ground Integrated Networks. The second keynote was by Prof Jaap van de Beek from Luleå Technical University on bridging the urban-rural divide in the Arctic region. Finally, Prof Mikael Gidlund from Mid Sweden University took the audience through 25 years flight of Wireless Connectivity in Industrial IoT.

- The future belongs to those who bridge the connectivity gap. This workshop ignites the potential of wireless for Industrial IoT and rural areas, fostering collaboration across projects to unlock a game-changing future, says Prof. Mikael Gidlund from Mid Sweden University.

Read more about the project: www.ensure6G.eu