The relationship between science, technology and society during the Covid-19 pandemic
The case of 5G Mobile Communication in Canada
Student names (alphabetical order): Kelly Acoca, Tamika Gokhool, Natasha Morham, Kate Roche, Maya Saeedi
Supervisor: Gita Ghiasi
Course: ENGR-392-2204-RR
Abstract
The development of 5G technology can have a significant impact in contributing to the Canadian economy and its society in terms of providing employment and opportunities. This technology is promising for the future as it can pave the way to introducing or improving services such as telehealth, smart transportation, online education, manufacturing, and internet of things, etc. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 5G wireless would be beneficial to slow the spread of the virus by allowing societies to continue their operations remotely. It provides digital infrastructure that keeps the globe connected. The objective of this study is to examine how 5G technology has impacted the Canadian society and economy during the period of 2015-2020 and if it can help with the fight of COVID-19. To do so, a socioeconomic analysis is conducted using the TEN concept as a framework. This allowed us to identify the actors and organizations involved and perform an analysis of the keywords, publications, patents, and companies involved with 5G technology. This quantitative data is found using the databases Inspec and Compendex. The main findings of this study are that the top academic and corporate institutions with publications in this field are not in Canada, however the top government institutions with the most publications is Industry Canada. The top funding sponsor was the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Among the top funding sponsors, three out of the five of them were from China. The industry that is most associated with 5G is manufacturing and retail trade. In the manufacturing industry, the gender gap in employment represents 61% with wage gaps representing 20%. This indicates inequality in this field as it is a male dominated field. The unemployment rate within these industries is roughly 7- 8% and employment rate being 10-16%. During COVID-19, 60-70% of businesses in these industries were negatively impacted by social distancing measures which means there is room for improvement in developing more remote solutions.