The future of…

Click here for contact details, other articles and personal details

The future of IT and the third world

Sept 2001

With technology racing ahead, the wealth gap between the developed world and the third world is increasing. More than half the world's population have yet to make their first phone call. However, there are strong grounds for optimism. A number of new technologies will enable much more rapid development than was previously possible. Some countries will move from third world to developed status in a relatively short time.

Historically, there has been a shift of manufacturing industry around the world, capitalising on lower wage rates in poorer countries that are sufficiently developed to cope with the basic needs of the industries. These countries quickly develop skills and move up the ladder. Until the recent Asian economic problems, there were strong fears of their technology leapfrogging the West, and it may yet happen. Wage expectations in the region had been increasing and the industry was set to move on as their economy moved up the value chain.

India is often used to outsource information work. It is a huge call-centre for western companies, taking bookings for flights for British Airways for instance. Other people there write software for western companies. In spite of having only 1.3 telephones per 100 people, they are rapidly developing the key skills to thrive in the information economy. The global information economy offers hope to many countries of rapid development.

Even in Africa there is hope. Much of Africa has little or no industrial infrastructure - electricity, water, transportation and telecomms infrastructure is very poor in many places, let alone high tech factories. Building this infrastructure would take a long time and is expensive. And yet there is hope that such people could jump on to the global information economy very soon, quickly become richer and then invest in these basic infrastructures. They could develop quickly by capitalising in low cost IT skills, not by the sluggish conventional historical route.

The idea of someone living in remote African village with no services working for a far off information company often invites ridicule but is perfectly feasible. These people lack wealth, not intelligence and are perfectly capable of learning advanced IT skills, let alone acting as part of a distributed call centre. Africa is rich in solar energy and in any case, clockwork PCs will one day be common, as power requirements fall for basic functionality. As for telecomms access, even though some African countries have as little as 1 phone per 1000 people, providers of cheap balloon based access, or low earth orbit satellite systems may be able to provide very affordable access to residents in third world countries.

So we can now imagine a scenario where a company in a developed country trains Africans as teleworkers, and provides them with a basic computer with free satellite based telecomms. These workers will have access to the internet at up to 2Mbit/s, so could do valuable web site development, remote IT management, software production, information processing or any other computer based job. When they have enough money to buy their own equipment and have sufficient skills, they could publish their work world-wide on the same basis as anyone in any other country, or run global virtual companies. There is no need for them to emigrate to make money. Their host countries will become wealthier.

To paraphrase the well-known cartoon, on the net, no-one knows your head office is a mud hut.

There is another factor which favours the third world in the information economy. The price of entertainment has sky-rocketed compared to physical goods in recent years. And yet most video based entertainment consists of re-workings of old ideas or even repeats. It would be surprising if the vast untapped cultural resources, stories and ideas in the third world would not provide them with a high income in coming years. What they are lacking most is access technology and it will be there soon, with someone else paying.