Abstract
In this chapter, I explore the many ways ICT is likely to impact social and economic development and points to the strategic significance of ICT for enabling national development and poverty reduction strategies. Most evidence comes from OECD countries or is slowly emerging from a few advanced developing countries. Based on this evidence, I believe that ICT offers many promises and opportunities, even while posing serious risks and uncertainties. Its impact is likely to be pervasive. Countries must fashion their own responses. Ad hoc or passive postures are likely to lead to eroding competitiveness, increasing divides and marginalization.
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Notes
- 1.
This “connect and develop” innovation strategy led to R&D productivity increase by nearly 60%, innovation success rate more than doubled, and the cost of innovation significantly fell (Huston and Sakkab, 2006).
- 2.
Naisbitt and Barber, among others, show how sub-national and global or regional institutions are gaining relative power vis-à-vis nation states.
- 3.
Moore observed an exponential growth in the number of transistors per integrated circuit and predicted a continuation of this trend. This has been generalized into a continued exponential growth in ICT capacity.
- 4.
Network externalities are derived from the fact that the value of a telephone line increases with each new subscriber by the number of potential connections between users. This indicates substantial externalities and there may be a threshold effect through which ICT begins to have substantial impact only when at a certain penetration level in the economy.
- 5.
This could change with strategies to develop and produce low-cost ICT products that are adapted to local markets in poor countries.
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Hanna, N.K. (2010). Promises and Implications of the Revolution. In: e-Transformation: Enabling New Development Strategies. Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1185-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1185-8_2
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