ITP Network: Industry 4.0 & Society 5.0

ITP Network: Industry 4.0 & Society 5.0

Exploring the future of manufacturing and industries: Industry 4.0’s true potential in advancing the attainment of the SDGs and shaping Society 5.0

As an envisaged future society in the human evolution, Society 5.0 has been promoted in Japan since 2016, following from hunter-gatherer society (Society 1.0), agrarian society (Society 2.0), industrial society (Society
3.0) and information society (Society 4.0).

The Society 5.0 is conceptualised as “human society that balances economic advancement with the resolution of social problems by a system that highly integrates cyberspace and physical space.” It is closely connected to the concept of Industry 4.0, characterised by technological advances, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics. Industry 4.0 is likely to change not only the way we work, but also the way we live.

Those spillover effects of Industry 4.0 technologies beyond manufacturing and industry are captured by the Japanese concept of Society 5.0. Both Industry 4.0, and Society 5.0 are closely aligned with the attainment of the UN 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as inclusive and sustainable industrial development. The session will
explore:

• What are the major challenges and opportunities of future manufacturing and industries in the new industrial revolution?
• Who benefits from the new industrial revolution and its emerging technologies and, who might be left behind?
• How can we ensure inclusion of the most vulnerable to leave no one behind, while perusing the future manufacturing and industries with high and advanced technologies?
• What are the lessons learnt from Society 5.0, that can be applied by a developed country like Japan with an aging society, to developing countries with a very different societal structure?