Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): The WMD, the WAD and the WSD Forum 2019

The Hong Kong Council for Testing and Certification (HKCTC), the Standards and Calibration Laboratory of the Innovation and Technology Commission (SCL), Government Laboratory (GL), Hong Kong Accreditation Service (HKAS) and Product Standards Information Bureau (PSIB) jointly organized the World Metrology Day (WMD), the World Accreditation Day (WAD) and the World Standards Day (WSD) Forum on 26 June 2019. Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) was one of supporting organizations. This forum organized in celebration of the World Metrology Day (WMD), World Accreditation Day (WAD) and World Standards Day

(WSD), would introduce the pivotal roles of metrology, accreditation and standards in supporting the Quality Infrastructure (QI). QI new definition by World Bank is ‘The system comprising the organisations (public and private) together with the policies, relevant legal and regulatory framework, and practices needed to support and enhance the quality, safety and environmental soundness of goods, services and processes.’ Before the start, I met Ms. Angela Wong (Vice-chairman, HKSQ) to support the forum.

I met many TIC friends and took photos for memory including Mr. KW Chen (HKAS) and Ms. Brenda Lam (SCL).

I took a photo with Mr. Matthew Tsui who is my old colleague in EPA Centre, CityU.

Photo with Miranda Kwan (Deputy Director, Certification and Business, SGS)

Photo with Dr. Ka-Sing Leung (Visiting Associate Professor (Food Science and Safety)

I also met Dr. Andy Parson who is my old colleague in TSC, HKSTP.

I was honor to discuss with Dr. Walter G. Copan (Director, NIST).

In the beginning, Mr. W.W. Wong (Assistant Commissioner (Finance & Quality Services), ITC, HKSAR Government) gave welcoming remarks. He said this forum started since 2014 and today’s theme focused on Quality Infrastructure that supported the global supply chain. He added that not only supply chain but supply network.

Group photo

The first speaker was Dr. Walter Copan (Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) and his topic entitled “The Language of the Universe: Metrology, Accreditation and Standards Enabling Global Innovation”. Firstly, he briefed NIST mission and it aims to promote innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.

Then he briefed their programmatic priorities including Advanced Manufacturing, Cybersecurity, IoT, Quantum Science and AI, etc. NIST research impacts every aspect of Economy he said. Dr. Copan used NIST Atomic Clock as example to explain metrology enabled innovation.

Finally Dr. Copan stated that Standards are common language to reflect state of technology which is foundation for technology innovation and market adoption to support protection of health, safety and environment. He also mentioned accreditation to be essential to innovation ecosystem. Government, NMIs, Universities, Research Institutes, Entrepreneurs, Investors are at the heart of innovation ecosystems. He used formula for economic success as conclusion that was “Measure – Innovate - Lead”.

The second speaker was Mr. Brahim Houla (Chairman, Communication and Marketing Committees of International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and Arab Accreditation Cooperation (ARAC)) and his presentation named “The Economic Value of Accreditation”. His talk included Business Benefits of Accreditation, Global System and WAD 2019.

Mr. Houla mentioned “Quality Infrastructure (QI) is the system comprising the organziations, the policies, relevant legal and regulatory framework, and practices needed to support and enhance the quality, safety and environmental soundness of goods, services and processes. Then he demonstrated the ILAC & IAF Conformity Assessment Infrastructure.

After that he briefed accreditation value added in different activities under ILAC and IAF. He added that accreditation roles included cost efficiency, impact on public services, international trade enabled, risk management, commercial benefit and effective market operations.

Finally, he introduced common aims and roles of IAF and ILAC and one of aims to support world trade by eliminating technical barriers, realizing the free-trade goal of “tested, inspected or certified once and accepted everywhere”. Lastly, he reminded the World Accreditation Day 2019 on 9 June 2019 and the theme named “Adding Value to Supply Chains”.

Mr. Dennis Chew (Director, International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Asia-Pacific Regional Centre) and his topic was “IEC – Video to Emerging Technological Trends”. He used the word “Video” implied to build on algorithms standardized by IEC, ISO and ITU.

Then he introduced ISO/IEC JTC1 that SC42 was newly created for Artificial Intelligence. Other new study groups included open source software, quantum computing, autonomous & data rich vehicles and data usage, etc. A new standard in IEC was SEG 10: Ethics in autonomous and artificial intelligence applications which was co-convened by China and Germany.

Finally, he briefed the IEC standards about 5G, Cyber security, etc. He gave a whole picture of IEC family included 86 members and 87 affiliates with 207 technical committees and 1430 working groups. Number of experts are around 20,000 and they had 5 regional offices.

Mr. Basil Wai (CEO, HKEIA) was the last speaker and his presentation title named “Accreditation: Adding Value to Ecosystem of Electronics and Technology Sector”.

In the beginning, he briefed the global trends from three sections and they were Ingredient technologies, Consumers and in the Market.

Then he introduced the ecosystem of global electronic supply chain and shared their members challenges including business operation in different regulatory environments, shorten product lifecycle, quality, data security, etc.

Finally, he concluded the benefits of accreditation that were reducing the costs of trade, upgrade and facilitate global brand image, and confident in supply chain. Mr. Wai used the LED product certificate as example to demonstrate this benefit.

Q&A Session, Mr. Tsui Cho-man (SCL) chaired the session.

I wrote two questions about AI standards that i) What is the challenge of AI standards and how to overcome it? And ii) How to develop test standard for AI algorithm?

Mr. Dennis Chew answered the first question that IEC formed different working groups to handle and discuss it such as ethic of AI.

Dr. Walter Copan answered the second question that we needed to enhance the transparent of the AI development and data so as to avoid unknown developer and data bias.

Reference:

HKCTC – http://www.hkctc.gov.hk/en/about.html

SCL – http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/quality/scl/about.htm

GL – http://www.govtlab.gov.hk/english/home.htm

HKAS – http://www.hkas.gov.hk

PSIB – http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/quality/psis/

HKSQ – http://www.hksq.org/

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20171027: Metrology Symposium 2017 (Redefinition of the SI Unit) - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2017/10/metrology-symposium-2017-redefinition.html

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Seminar on the WMD, the WAD and the WSD 2016 (flyer) - http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/quality/hkas/images/Photos/World_Accreditation_Day/WAD_2016_flyer.pdf

Seminar Celebrating the WMD, the WAD and the WSD 2015 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2015/05/seminar-celebrating-wmd-wad-and-wsd-2015.html