Global Challenges Facing Humanity
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6. How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone?
Over 2 billion Internet users, 5 billion mobile phones, and uncountable billions of hardware devices are intercommunicating in a vast real-time multinetwork, supporting every facet of human activity. New forms of civilization will emerge from this convergence of minds, information, and technology worldwide. The eG8 was created in 2011 to explore government-business roles in managing this evolution. It is reasonable to assume that the majority of the world will experience ubiquitous computing and eventually spend most of its time in some form of technologically augmented reality. Today mobile devices have become personal electronic companions, combining computer, GPS, telephone, camera, projector, music player, TV, and intelligent guides to local and global resources.
As Moore's Law continues, costs fall, and ease of use increases, even remote and less developed areas will participate in this emerging globalization. The race is on to complete the global nervous system of civilization. Collaborative systems, social networks, and collective intelligences are self-organizing into new forms of transnational democracies that address issues and opportunities. This is giving birth to unprecedented international conscience and action, augmenting conventional management. Such open systems seem natural responses to increasing complexity that has grown beyond hierarchical control. Open source software's non-ownership model may become a significant element in the next economic system. Businesses are building offices and holding meetings in cyberworlds that compete with conventional reality.
One of the next "big things" could be the emergence of collective intelligences for issues, businesses, and countries, forming new kinds of organizations able to address problems and opportunities without conventional management. Collective intelligence can be thought of as a continually emerging property that we create (hands on) from synergies among people, software, and information that continually learns from feedback to produce just-in-time knowledge for better decisions than any one of these elements acting alone. Realtime streamed communications shorten the time it takes from situational awareness to decisions. Search engines and Wikipedia give instant access to "all" the world's stored knowledge. The Web is evolving from the present user-generated and participatory system (Web 2.0) into Web 3.0, a more intelligent partner that has knowledge about the meaning of the information it stores and has the ability to reason with that knowledge. Most mobile phones being sold today have computer capabilities, with thousands of apps and access to cloud computing.
However, this explosive growth of Internet traffic, mainly from video streaming, has created a stress on the Net's capacities, requiring new approaches to keep up with bandwidth demand, while the ubiquity of the Internet in society makes its reliability critically vital. People and businesses are trusting their data and software to "cloud computing" on distant Net-connected servers rather than their own computers, raising privacy and reliability questions. The Amazon cloud data center's outage and Sony PlayStation's release of personal data for millions of users are examples. Even though Wikipedia has become the world's encyclopedia, it struggles to counter disinformation campaigns fought through its pages. Governments are wrestling with how to control harmful content. A vigorous debate continues on net neutrality, the doctrine that technical and economic factors for Net users should not be affected by considerations of equipment, type of user, or communications content.
Humanity, the built environment, and ubiquitous computing are becoming a continuum of consciousness and technology reflecting the full range of human behavior, from individual philanthropy to organized crime. Low-cost computers are replacing high-cost weapons as an instrument of power in asymmetrical warfare. Cyberspace is also a new medium for disinformation among competing commercial interests, ideological adversaries, governments, and extremists, and is a battleground between cybercriminals and law enforcement. The full range of cybercrimes worldwide is estimated at $1 trillion annually. Fundamental rethinking will be required to ensure that people will be able to have reasonable faith in information. We have to learn how to counter future forms of information warfare that otherwise could lead to the distrust of all forms of information in cyberspace.
It is hard to imagine how the world can work for all without reliable tele-education, tele-medicine, and teleeverything. Internet bases with wireless transmission are being constructed in remote villages; cell phones with Internet access are being designed for educational and business access by the lowest-income groups; and innovative programs are being created to connect the poorest 2 billion people to the evolving nervous system of civilization. Two million children now have OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) XOs. Social networking spurs the growth of political consciousness and popular power, as in the "Arab Spring." E-government systems allow citizens to receive valuable information from their leaders, provide feedback to them, and carry out needed transactions without time-consuming and possibly corrupt human intermediaries. Telemedicine capabilities are uniting doctors and patients across continents. E-government systems exist to some degree for the majority of the world; the UN conducts comparative assessments of the e-government status of its member states.
Developing countries and foreign aid should have broadband access as national priorities, to make it easier to use the Internet to connect developingcountry professionals overseas with the development processes back home, improve educational and business usage, and make e-government and other forms of development more available. Challenge 6 will have been addressed seriously when Internet access and basic tele-education are free and available universally and when basic tele-medicine is commonplace everywhere.
Regional Considerations
Africa: According to worldinternetstats.com, Internet penetration in Africa is 10.9%, up 25% since last year. There are 506 million mobiles, for 50% penetration. The new Main One and West Africa fiber-optic cables are cutting cost and increasing speed. Kenya's Digital Villages Project integrates Internet access, business training, and microcredit. FAO's Africa Crop Calendar Web site provides information for 130 crops. Tele-education, tele-medicine, and e-government will become more important as African professionals die of AIDS in increasing numbers.
Asia and Oceania: Asia has the largest share of the world's Internet users (42%) but only 20% penetration. China has about 420 million Internet users with nearly 280 million Internet-connected mobile phones. Controversies over control of Internet access continue in China. Vietnam, India, Turkey, and Iran have tightened controls on Internet access and content. Phones are being smuggled into North Korea to post reports on conditions. The UN continues to rate South Korea the top e-ready country, but that nation is struggling with video game addiction. Some 300,000 people in Bangladesh are learning English from the BBC. India is establishing e-government stations in rural villages.
Europe: About 70% of EU-27 households had access to the Internet in 2010. Finland has made 1 MB/s broadband a legal right for all Finns. The EU's Safer Internet Programme is working in 26 European countries to counter child pornography, pedophilia, and digital bullying. The EU policy is that Internet access is a right, but it can be cut off for misuse. Estonians (inside and outside their country) cast their votes for the Estonian parliament by mobile phones in March 2011. Macedonia is providing computers to all in grades 1–3.
Latin America: About 34% of the region has Internet access. The region's children with Internet access will rise from 1.5 million today to 30 million by 2015. Uruguay is the first country to provide all primary students with their own Internet-connected laptop, followed by Costa Rica. Fulfilling the promise of these tools will require more serious attention to training. The Internet was of great assistance in dealing with the Haiti earthquake. Fiber optic cable has been laid between Cuba and Venezuela.
North America: Free to all on the Internet, Google and Wikipedia are making the phrase "I don't know" obsolete. Wikipedia is educating the world with 3.7 million articles in English and lesser amount in nine other languages. Silicon Valley continues as a world leader in innovative software due to company policies like Google's that gives its employees 20% free time to create anything they want. This "20-pecent Time" is credited with half of Google's new products. The United States is in ninth place in the world in access to high broadband connections. Broadband development in rural and underserved areas was undermined by the financial crisis, but it is still a U.S. national priority. The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team reported an estimated 39% increase in cyber-attacks against government computer networks in 2010.
Figure: Internet Users in the World by Geographic Regions, 2011 (millions)
Source: internetworldstats.com
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