Charting the digital Tide

On the second day of the Caribbean Tide conference, the discussions surged more determinedly into the territory inferred by an event that took its acronym from technology and innovation for the digital economy.

The three-day event, which ran from August 25 to 27 at the Hilton Trinidad explored many regional issues related to technology, but Wednesday morning brought regional bankers and ministers together to discuss ICT in regional governance and infrastructure, which are mission critical for any real growth in the archipelago.

The World Bank’s Doyle Gallegos discussed early findings from a global report exploring the “digital dividends” of the technology revolution. That report, Gallegos stressed, was still in the information gathering stage (http://ow.ly/RO1SE), and its findings are still incomplete. The findings on a global scale are what you might expect to find.

Internet use decreases market and non-market transaction costs, but the developmental consequences of that fundamental change have been, the World Bank is finding, counterintuitive. According to early data from the report, in the digital age, global productivity has dropped, global inequality has expanded and the share of elections that are free and fair has also declined.

Taking a hit are the analog economies of innovation, creating a situation in which ICT tends to deliver between four and six per cent of GDP and one to two per cent of jobs while gobbling up 15-20 per cent of investment capital, and tending to create digital monopolies. Mid-skilled jobs are shrinking in 20 of the 22 developing countries assessed for the report. If workers in that sector of the job market can’t upgrade their skills, they drift down to low-skilled work.

The dream of universal accessibility is on track, but only for voice and SMS messages, for which coverage is available for 6.8 billion people. Of an estimated global population of seven billion, six billion have no broadband, four billion have no Internet and two billion have no access to mobile phones.

Only 1.1 billion people in the world have access to affordable high-speed Internet access. This isn’t a problem for developing nations only. According to Dr Arunas Slekys who consults with Global VSAT, a satellite based Internet provider, 10-12 per cent of US citizens are underserved, a total of 10-12 million people who the provider works to reach using its technology.

To read more, Charting the digital Tide

Taken from Guardian.co.tt