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The development of the information society
There is barely a week passing without politicians evoking the vision of an inclusive information society. The United Nations and the European Union are giving the information society high priority. At the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva last December, the participants declared a common vision of the information society, which includes that “everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge”. Although it appears that at least some developed countries are on the right path to realising that vision, it looks like not only the developing countries have a long way to go until the vision comes true. At the mentioned World Summit, an action plan was adopted that postulates activities by governments and private stakeholders for developing and implementing e-strategies and modern communication infrastructures for providing easy and affordable access. All areas of social, economic, and political life are designed to benefit from the ‘e-factor’: e-government, e-business, e-learning, e-health, e-employment, e-environment, e-agriculture, e-science, and the authors of the action plan might have added e-security as well. The vision is exciting, but how far have we come on the stony path to the moving target called ‘inclusive information society’? The reality is both sobering and raising hope. Never before in history had so many people such convenient access to communication technologies, which have let the Earth shrink to a global village. Even in remote places in Africa it is today possible to talk to other parts of the world through wireless networks. The dynamic development of new information and communication technologies is thus contributing to narrowing the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the emerging knowledge economy, where the digital access to knowledge has become a central factor in the quality of life. The downside is that the fast train of technological development leaves a number of people behind, at least in a transitory phase. Broadband is an example for this. Only 7 in 100 inhabitants in OECD countries have access to broadband. Despite the rapid growth of the number of broadband users, they are still a minority on global average. There are exceptional countries like South Korea and Japan with extremely high adoption rates, but the majority of countries have not yet exploited the full potential of broadband. The OECD even went a step further in a statement issued in February this year by denouncing the missed opportunities in broadband. As a major factor the OECD blamed the still insufficient liberalisation of telecom markets in some of its member countries, which according to this logic, keeps prices too high for mass-market adoption. This, however, might be a bit too narrow-sighted. What is really inhibiting broadband services take-off, especially in Europe, is rather the slow innovation process. The European Commission has recognised this and tried to accelerate the innovation process in ICT through the 6th Framework Programme. As beneficial as this may be, it is still not enough. The Council of European Ministers agreed on the need and tries to increase R&D expenditure in the European Union in order to reach the Lisbon goal of 3 % R&D expenditure of the GDP. Despite these efforts and the declarations especially by the German and the French government, Europe, in terms of R&D expenditure in ICT, is still lagging behind the United States and some Asian countries. As a consequence the innovation process in Europe is still too slow compared to the countries mentioned above. What Europe really needs are more industry-driven public-private initiatives for advancing the communication infrastructure in Europe and thus laying the ground for the flourishing of new services that will increase the citizens’ quality of life. The current model of public research in Europe might have to be re-considered in order to accelerate the innovation process in European ICT. Eurescom is ready to support any discussion and initiative to achieve this ambitious goal. Please send us your comments on this article. |
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