Dateline: December 13, 2013
Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.
Last month, former President Bill Clinton addressed an audience in China about the role of IT in creating economic wealth.
Clinton contends universal access to high-speed broadband raises education levels across any given community, which in turn creates the skills needed to drive innovation and prosperity. And technologies such as big data and cloud computing, for example, will play a huge role in lowering the cost of health-care across the globe, he says.
At the same time, Clinton concedes that while IT is helping drive massive gains in productivity, those gains are not leading to a corresponding increase in the size of the middle class. The end result is an increase in overall wealth, but not a similar increase in overall employment.
Clinton expects a new generation of digital Millennials to help solve today’s issues by increasingly cooperating across national, ethnic and religious boundaries and to also drive the next wave of economic growth. Clinton argues that ubiquitous access to high-speed network bandwidth will provide the foundation for ultimately evening out the distribution of wealth across the globe.
Is investment in IT the foundation needed for global economic growth? How does your organization contribute to the next wave of economic growth across the globe?
That’s a WRAP! Have a nice weekend.
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