Challenge 6: Switching on to the politics of the digital era

In part six of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Jake Wallis argues that the infrastructure of global communication networks is inherently political and calls for a switched-on populace…...

Global challenge 6: How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone?

Challenge 6 of the Millenium Project’s Global Challenges Facing Humanity is a tricky one. How can the convergence of information and communications technologies (ICTs) work for everyone?

The problem, as cyberpunk author William Gibson famously said, is that “the future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

Some organisations have modelled online (ironically) the disparities in infrastructure and use of global information and communications networks. They use visualisation techniques to represent digital data. StatSilk uses data from the International Telecommunications Union (the United Nations’ specialist agency for information and communications technologies) to model the global distribution of broadband per 100 inhabitants: you can see it here. The interactive model lets you watch as broadband spreads across the globe over the decade 1999-2009. You don’t need to be William Gibson to see that broadband is not very evenly distributed.

The global community must discuss how pervasive networks can best serve social well-being. The problem is that the inequalities inherent in existing global structures – distribution of food, clean water, health care and so on – are already reflected across our global networks.

Source: http://theconversation.edu.au/challenge-6-switching-on-to-the-politics-of-the-digital-era-7561

See it on Scoop.it, via Knowledge Economy

http://www.scoop.it/t/knowledge-economy/p/1973006950/challenge-6-switching-on-to-the-politics-of-the-digital-era/original Challenge 6: Switching on to the politics of the digital era