Updates from GCF's Q4 2019 Steering Group Meeting

• 06 Jan 2020
• Lars Nielsen

GCF delegates met just before the holidays in Tampa for the last Steering Group meeting of 2019, where amidst a packed agenda there was time to celebrate 20 years of GCF and reflect on how the organisation has evolved. A fitting tribute to the pace of evolution from just providing certification programmes for mobile communications 20 years ago, a joint task force with TCCA was agreed at the meeting which will see 2020 deliver a certification initiative for MCX – a mix of mission critical services including MCPTT, MCData and MCVideo. The initial actions of the taskforce are due to be completed during the first half of 2020.

20 years is a major milestone, delegates were excited to ratify at the meeting a new, updated brand refresh for the organisation, which sees the introduction of a slightly modified logo, look and feel, whilst still maintaining the integrity of the brand values that have been established during the years. The re-energised branding will roll-out during January across all assets for a cohesive marketing approach at GCF’s first event of 2020, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. 

Other highlights included the board election, seeing two new companies take-up representation and approval of the 2020 budget that will facilitate significant updates to our IT tools and the development of a new, enhanced certification database (DCC).

The pace of work continues to forge ahead into 2020 as we’ll be formalising our partnership with 5GAA to provide the framework that addresses the testing needs for C-V2X and further developing our certification programmes for 5G and IoT.  As mentioned, our first event will be at Mobile World Congress Barcelona on 24-27th February, where as well as officially revealing our updated brand identity, the much anticipated first edition of our 2019 device trends data analysis will be available.

The next Steering Group meeting SG#82 will take place in Munich, Germany on 24-26 March 2020.