The dawn of the 5G era is at hand, and the world is on the cusp of massive change. From the tech sector to the entertainment industry, to politics, medicine and communications -- fifth-generation cellular network technology promises to transform daily life in both tangible and far-reaching ways. Perhaps most importantly, it also holds the potential to create a brighter future for people around the world. Such was the theme of Rakuten CEO Mickey Mikitani's opening keynote address at Rakuten Optimism in Yokohama, Japan last month -- the company's largest-ever group event. Speaking in front of a capacity crowd in a 5000-seat convention hall that held communications, tech, finance and retail industry leaders and business partners, Mikitani described his vision for the impact of 5G on a broad range of fields, including the rise of AI and machine learning, cashless payments, medical advances, the telcomms industry (into which Rakuten will launch the world's first end-to-end cloud-native mobile network later this year) and more.