Society 5.0 - 2022: Editor's Preface

This volume contains the papers presented at Society 5.0 - 2022: Society 5.0 Conference 2022 - Integrating Digital World and Real World to Resolve Challenges in Business and Society held on June 20-22, 2022 in Brugg-Windisch, Switzerland.

Dear authors and readers,

It is with great pleasure that we write this foreword to the Proceedings of the second International Conference on Society 5.0 held as a hybrid event from 20 to 22 June 2022. The Society 5.0 Conference 2022 is hosted by the FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. We expect this multi- and interdisciplinary conference to continue to grow into a premier conference series.

The annual conference series is jointly organized by the Universidad EAFIT (Colombia), the University of Pretoria (South Africa), University of Camerino (Italy), the Business School of the Shenzhen Technology University (China), the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (Malaysia), Putra Business School (Malaysia) and the FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland.

Society 5.0 can be defined as adopting a socio-technical perspective on a human-centered society that balances sustainable economic advancement with the resolution of social problems. The socio-technical perspective views Society 5.0 as an integration of cyberspace (virtual technology space) and the physical (real) space. Society 5.0 aims to create a society where social challenges are resolved by incorporating the technological innovations of the fourth industrial revolution (e.g. Internet of Things, Big Data, Artificial intelligence, and the sharing economy) into industry and social life.

Society 5.0 is concerned with the enormous opportunities and challenges of the 21st century. Problems such as climate change, migration and resource consumption must be solved jointly and globally using technology developments. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as poverty and education require international efforts. Lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic can have an important impact on dealing with global challenges and crisis situations. Technological advancements and trends for digital transformation should assist us to address these global problems. Convergence of cyberspace and physical space can foster new forms of global cooperation. People, things, and systems are all connected in cyberspace. Results obtained by AI can exceed the capabilities of humans and are fed back to physical space.

The Society 5.0 conference series plan to include the entire range of high-quality research about these socio-technical opportunities and challenges, as well as showcase solutions. The theme for Society 5.0 Conference 2022 is Integrating the Digital World and Real World to Resolve Challenges in Business and Society.

The Society 5.0 conference solicited submissions for the following tracks:

• The research track covering socio-technical research on topic areas across all research fields;
• The practice track where authors present practical experience and case studies;
• The digital future day where two keynote speakers, a panel and experienced practitioners share their perspectives;
• Satellite events are workshops and tutorials that align with the Society 5.0 vision.

We sincerely thank all organizers, partners, authors and reviewers without whom this conference would not have been realised.

Technical Information

This Society 5.0 Conference 2022 open access online proceedings are published to support our hybrid conference. The proceedings contain the revised research and practice papers that were accepted for Society 5.0 Conference 2022 after a rigorous review process. We are thankful that our second annual Society 5.0 Conference again solicited the support it did during this challenging year with all the uncertainties due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

We received 34 research and 5 practice submissions, which were sent out for review to our Society 5.0 programme committee. The programme committee comprised more than 45 members from across the world. Each paper was reviewed by at least three members of the programme committee in a rigorous, blind review process where the following criteria were taken into consideration: Relevance to Society 5.0, Significance, Technical Quality, Scholarship, and Presentation that included quality and clarity of writing.

For this Society 5.0 online proceedings, 15 full research papers were selected for publication in our EPiC volume (which translates to an acceptance rate of 44%), and a further four practice papers were accepted for inclusion into the proceedings practice track.

Thank you to all the authors and programme committee members, and congratulations to the authors whose research was accepted for publication in these proceedings. We wish our readers a fruitful reading experience with these proceedings!

Committees

Technical Chairs

• Aurona Gerber, University of Pretoria, South Africa
• Knut Hinkelmann, FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland

General Chairs

• Marc Aeschbacher, FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland
• Knut Hinkelmann, FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland

Organisation Committee

• Jolanda Birrer, FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland
• Devid Montecchiari, FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland