  We propose a vision for directing research and education in the ICT field.
Our Smart and Sustainable World vision targets at prosperity for the people and
the planet through better awareness and control of both human-made and natural
environment. The needs of the society, individuals, and industries are
fulfilled with intelligent systems that sense their environment, make proactive
decisions on actions advancing their goals, and perform the actions on the
environment. We emphasize artificial intelligence, feedback loops, human
acceptance and control, intelligent use of basic resources, performance
parameters, mission-oriented interdisciplinary research, and a holistic systems
view complementing the conventional analytical reductive view as a research
paradigm especially for complex problems. To serve a broad audience, we explain
these concepts and list the essential literature. We suggest planning research
and education by specifying, in a step-wise manner, scenarios, performance
criteria, system models, research problems and education content, resulting in
common goals and a coherent project portfolio as well as education curricula.
Research and education produce feedback to support evolutionary development and
encourage creativity in research. Finally, we propose concrete actions for
realizing this approach.
