More than 250,000 participants from around the world visited CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas over the course of three days. Transport has been part of CES for several editions. However for the very first time, the rail sector, represented by UIC, was present at the kind invitation of the Presidents of CES and CES Government, respectively Mr Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)™, the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,200 consumer technology companies and which owns and produces CES® – The Global Stage for Innovation, as well as Mr Donald Upson, Co-founder of CES Government.
UIC’s contributions
Through the multiple panels, discussions, presentations and keynote speeches UIC was able to reinforce the role of Rail as a backbone of this new approach to modal integration, in particular, the outcome of our “Next Station” conference in Madrid highlighting the intelligent management of the interfaces in smart stations.
The objective of building a sustainable, integrated, connected chain of mobility is highly welcome and the role of rail, both for Passenger and Freight, is understood to be a priority for future investments.
This requires an acceleration in innovation and a better partnership with the Digital ecosystem to boost new innovative projects.
A strong focus was placed on new algorithms such as the technology of blockchain that aims not only at creating crypto currency or ICOs but also bringing an added value in traceability and transparency in integrated mobility chains.
At the UIC Global Rail Freight Conference of Genoa at the end of June, UIC will invite startups to demonstrate the added-value of blockchains in large international freight corridors
UIC’s participation and messages at CES 2018, CES Government and EUROTECH WEEK have clearly demonstrated that Rail is a strategic sector in this complementary process.
UIC has taken this opportunity to invite the US Secretary of State for Transportation to our forthcoming North American Regional Assembly that will take place in Washington in early June and the President of CES Government, Don UPSON, to our Highspeed World Conference in Ankara in early May.
The latter has already accepted our invitation.
These major messages supported by EUROTECH, CES + CESG have been most warmly welcome and Don UPSON, CES G Chairman, has accepted UIC’s invitation to participate as Honour Guest in the Highspeed Conference in Ankara. It will be another opportunity to support and reinforce this integrated vision.
- You can watch a video on UIC digital activities, and “Share-open-connect”, the motto of the UIC Digital Platform: https://youtu.be/2Dsj7Ek5DFo
- Further information about UIC Digital Activities is available here: https://uic.org/digital
- An Updated version of our UIC Digital Progress Paper will be available soon. The latest version is available here:
