World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2020: History, Significance, Facts, and Theme of the day

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day is celebrated annually on May 17. It’s the day to celebrate the power of telecommunication and its significance in building connections across cultures around the globe. The day was authored by the United Nations General Assembly. Before 2015, it was simply viewed as the World Telecommunication Day, and later, the UN renamed it by including ‘And Information Society Day’ ahead.

World Telecommunication And Information Society Day 2020: Significance

The day is celebrated to feature the use of communication and positive trades through technology. Presently in a circumstance like COVID-19 pandemic, the use of information technology becomes significantly more critical to remain updated on the news and becoming more acquainted with about your friends and family without any physical association with them.

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day is observed every year on May 17 to raise awareness about the conceivable outcomes of the use of the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICT) in uniting societies and economies by the approaches to connecting the digital divide.

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2020: Theme

UNESCO celebrates the day with an extraordinary theme every year. This year, as the world deals with a destructive virus and spotlights on ensuring and saving lives, UNESCO attempted to feature the significance of sustainable development.

The theme for World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2020 is “Connect 2030: ICTs for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.

The theme will concentrate on the technological advancements in the upcoming years and how the progressions will add to the development of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is a part of the UN Agenda pointing towards Sustainable Development.

The theme for World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2020 will give ITU membership to think upon the Information and Communication Technological advances for changing to a smarter development. The World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2020 will offer significance to Information and Communication Technology-enabled solutions and the upcoming trends for supporting financial, environmental, and social sustainability. World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2020 theme will add to vital goals as per Connect 2030 Agenda. Examine the five methodologies:

• Growth
• Inclusiveness
• Sustainability
• Innovation
• Partnership

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day theme 2020 will give ITU Membership and other key partners a chance to:

• To state strongly a global vision of the whole Information society
• To promote the theme for World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2020 and Agenda to help in accomplishing SDGs

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day: History

World Information Society Day

World Telecommunication Day has been praised every year on 17 May since 1969, denoting the establishing of ITU and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865. It was initiated by the Plenipotentiary Conference in Malaga-Torremolinos in 1973 as Resolution 46.

World Telecommunication Day

In November 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society called upon the UN General Assembly to pronounce 17 May as World Information Society Day to concentrate on the significance of ICT and the wide scope of issues identified with the Information Society raised by WSIS. The General Assembly adopted a resolution (A/RES/60/252) in March 2006 specifying that World Information Society Day will be celebrated every year on 17 May.

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day

In November 2006, the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Antalya, Turkey, decided to celebrate the two events on 17 May as World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. The updated Resolution 68 welcomes the Member States and Sector Members to celebrate the day every year by organizing proper national programs with a view to:

• invigorating reflection and trades of thoughts on the theme received by the Council
• discussing the different aspects of the theme with all partners in society
• formulating a report thinking about national conversations the issues fundamental the theme, to be fed back to ITU and the rest of its membership

The first international telegraph convention was signed in Paris on May 17, 1865. The event was formally started in 1973 in Malaga-Torremolinos, Spain, at the ITU plenipotentiary conference.

Why is World Telecommunication Day celebrated?

The day concentrates on using advanced technology to satisfy the sustainable development goals in the following few years. There are five goals as recorded in the wholesome way to deal with accomplishing sustainable development goals to focus on economic, environmental, and social sustainability. These five plans incorporate growth, inclusiveness, sustainability, innovation, and partnership.

In 2019, the theme remained ‘Bridging the standardization gap’ that likewise planned for acquiring equity accomplishing sustainable development with the use of od advanced technology.

Facts about Telecommunication

• The first text message sent was “Merry Christmas” by Neil Papworth.

• Hello should be ‘ahoy’ as recommended by Alexander Graham Bell – yet Thomas Alva Edison came up with the word ‘Hello ‘ and that was more acknowledged over it’s gotten from the ship slang – ahoy!

• The longest phone cable is called FLAG (Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe). It is 16,800 miles in length and interfaces Japan to the United Kingdom. It can carry 600,000 calls one after another.

• Being inconsiderate to a telephone operator in Prussia was at one time a crime. In 1908, a respected resident was reproved by the government after getting exasperated with an operator and saying “My dear girl!”

• One of the first telephone replying machines was created in Switzerland during the 1950s. It took three days to install.

• The commercial wireless phone was first presented in Chicago in 1982 by Ameritech.

• In the primary month of the Bell Telephone Company’s presence in 1877, just six telephones were sold.

• Around 2 billion individuals in the world still can’t seem to make a phone call.

• International calls are not, at this point transmitted over through satellites – nowadays, this activity has been taken over by fiber optics and VoIP – which has likewise lead to an improvement in the quality of the network and the sound transmitted as well.

• Apple’s iPhone may have cut into the list of the world’s most sold telephones, yet think about who’s likewise on that list? Nokia’s first models – 3210 and 3310 versions.