A colleague recently sent me a report by McKinsey that touches on the topic. "Fostering the Economic and Social Benefits of ICT," is a chapter in a 2010 report published by the World Economic Forum. In addition to highlighting ICT's share of global GDP in 2008 (5.4 per cent) and a projection for GDP share in 2020 (8.7 per cent), the report looks at the role ICT plays in improving education, healthcare and government services.
It explores Jordan's delivery of e-learning to 50,000 students and 3,200 teachers as part of a program to reduce unemployment and poverty, and South Africa using speech-recognition technology over the web to teach children and adults to read English and improve their literacy. Denmark is recognized for its development of a healthcare portal that allows patients and doctors to view medical profiles and histories, re-new prescriptions, book appointments and other functions, and a hospital chain in India for providing basic diagnostics such as blood pressure, check-ups, and consultations via mobile services.
The examples in the report had a number of things in common, the principal ones being improved quality of life for large segments of the population, the public and private sector working in tandem, and ICT as the enabler. The authors suggest countries that are able to reconcile and align industry, government and regulatory agendas will accrue benefits more quickly and than those who cannot.
One place cited of doing just that is Singapore. In Singapore i2015, the country's vision of becoming an information society by the year 2015, the objectives outlined are to:
- double of the value added of the ICT industry to $17 billion,
- triple ICT exports to $40 billion,
- quadruple software and IT services revenues to $24 billion,
- create 80,000 new jobs,
- achieve a household broadband penetration rate of 90%,
- and ensure that every household with school-going children will own a computer with connections to the internet.
The "how" is where the social agenda becomes clearer. Government is making significant investments in e-health, e-government, e-learning and e-logistics, with the intent of both improving social programs and stimulating demand for ICT products and services.
These are aggressive goals, and while I'm not comfortable with what appears to be the digital equivalent of a chicken in every pot, I still think it's a good example of strategic spending. In addition to enhancing the quality and delivery of social programs, government is improving digital literacy, and fostering the creation of new companies, products and services in one of the fastest growing segments of the global economy. Looks like a win-win-win to me.
So what can we do about it? A start might be government articulating its vision for leveraging ICT for social and economic ends. The premier was recently quoted as promising to grow high-tech jobs in Fredericton and Moncton as part of the deficit reduction strategy (not sure why Saint John wasn't mentioned, there are at least as many ICT jobs there as in the other two cities) and while that's a positive step, it's not a comprehensive strategy for the province. We need to nail down a vision for how ICT will be leveraged to advantage us socially and economically first, then work together to figure out how to make it happen.
Because to paraphrase the Cheshire cat, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Larry Sampson
Quelle/Source: New Brunswick Business Journal, 09.08.2010
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
