He finds teaching and interacting with his postgraduate students a special joy, fully acknowledging that conducting research, and writing papers and books are carried out as a team and not by him alone. “I love training the next generation and helping them to excel. When publishing papers, I put students’ names first and give them credit. I hope they will become more famous than myself. I treat them like colleagues – they work with me, not for me,” he said. An optimist in outlook, Prof. Letaief’s motivation in all his endeavors is powered by the view that “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. “You need to have a vision, but the most important thing is the execution,” he said. “A vision without execution is only a dream. I love challenges and try to set ambitious goals.” Thus, along with research and teaching, Prof. Letaief has taken up management roles including Head of the ECE Department, Director of the Wireless IC System Design Center, Founding Director of Huawei Innovation Laboratory, and Director of the Hong Kong Telecom Institute of Information Technology as well as the deanship. He has also embraced professional activities, which he sees as an essential part of a scholar’s career, helping an academic to excel through interaction with diverse leading minds. A member of the eminent Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the main professional organization in his field, for over years and an IEEE Fellow since , he was elected founding editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications in and tasked with creating the journal from scratch with a team of editors. The journal is now regarded as one of the most prestigious, with an impact factor of . 6 in . In addition, he served as President of the IEEE Communications Society from 8 to , nurturing the younger generation, extending ethnic and gender diversity, global reach, and promoting technological innovation. Now, despite achieving top global standing in his field, he is determined to keep advancing our wireless future. Indeed, he and his co-authors have already looked ahead to envisage that future in “The Roadmap to 6G: AI Empowered Wireless Networks”, published by IEEE Communications Magazine in and one of the world’s first papers on the vision for 6G, including potential technologies and key trends. “You need to have a vision, but the most important thing is the execution. A vision without execution is only a dream” He sees that 6G will represent a revolutionary paradigm shi as it will not only center on increasing transmission speed but also be AI empowered. This will result in a wireless evolution from “connected things” to “connected intelligence” to enable interconnectivity among humans, things, and intelligence within a deeply intertwined cyber-physical world, he explained. For example, 6G’s increased scalability, higher bandwidth and frequencies will enable practices such as remote surgery whereby a doctor cuts a vein on a computer in Hong Kong and a robot in New York will do the same to an actual patient. Such a future will also support ubiquitous AI services and internet of everything (IoE) applications, including those for sustainable cities, augmented, mixed and virtual reality, brain-computer interfaces, autonomous transportation, e-health, and more. The 6G standard is expected to be completed as early as 8, while mass commercialization could occur around . For young people starting to think about careers and how to contribute to this transformational world to come, it may seem that little from the past is likely to apply. Yet for Prof. Letaief, the pathway to such a contribution is as clear as when he himself was making this decision as a teenager – one that he is always thankful he made. “If you wish to help solve grand challenges such as sustainability, health, security, and energy, you should pursue science and research,” he said. “It will not only bring you lots of fun and personal satisfaction, but also allow you to make a di erence by advancing technology for humanity.” Prof. Letaief sees 6G will bring a paradigm shift, centered on the integration of communications, computing, control, and sensing plus AI. Faculty Insight 18 IN FOCUS
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