Booklet of Papers of the 11th International Conference on Standardisation and Innovation in Information Technology (SIIT 2020)

Since 1999, SIIT conferences are bringing together experts from academia, government and industry with an interest in ICT standardisation. It thus serves as a platform to foster the exchange of insights and views on all issues surrounding standards, standardisation and innovation. Contributing academic disciplines include, but are by no means limited to: Business Studies, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, History, Information Systems, Law, Management Studies and Sociology.
The theme of the 211th SIIT conference was ‘The Past, 20/20 and FUTURE of ICT Standardisation’. But – like many other such events, the conference fell prey to the Covid-19 virus. This Book of Papers represent a compilation of some of the papers that would have been presented. Over the past decade, the ICT industry has undergone a dramatic transformation. One effect of this has been a shift of economic and technical power to some of the largest corporations in the world. This has had massive ramification for investments in this sector, as well as for the ecosystem of ICT application and product development. Has this development impacted standardisation and innovation and if so, how? Moreover, it appears that the ICT industry has become overly obsessed with being first and being unique; change has become a desirable end in itself. In such an environment, standardisation may quickly be devaluated in stakeholders’ mind sets. It is still necessary but ‘someone else’s problem’. And this will lead to long term (interoperability) problems. Against this background, SIIT 2020 aimed to take a step back and do some stock-taking. What have we got? What do we need? How can we close the gap (if any)? Where will we probably go from here and where should we go? Can we learn something from history? How do ongoing technical, economic, political, social or legal developments impact standardisation, and how can/should the current standardisation system adapt to these developments (if at all)?