essay on economic and technology

The Role of Technology in Economics

Economist Zone

Welcome to a deep dive into the intricate relationship between technology and economics. This exploration aims to shed light on how technology has not only transformed our daily lives but also the economic landscape. From enhancing productivity to reshaping industries, technology plays a pivotal role in economics. Let's embark on this journey to understand the profound impact of technology on economic structures, policies, and trends.

The Digital Revolution and Economic Productivity

The digital revolution has significantly boosted economic productivity. Technology has automated routine tasks, freeing up human resources for more complex and creative endeavors. This shift has led to an increase in productivity, a key driver of economic growth.

Moreover, technology has also enabled the creation of new products and services. These innovations have opened up new markets and revenue streams, further fueling economic growth. For instance, the advent of smartphones has given rise to a whole new industry of mobile applications, creating jobs and contributing to the economy.

However, the impact of technology on productivity is not uniform across all sectors. While some industries have seen substantial productivity gains, others have not. This disparity can lead to economic inequality, a topic we will explore in a later section.

Technology and Globalization

Technology has been a key driver of globalization, breaking down geographical barriers and creating a truly global economy. The internet, in particular, has revolutionized the way businesses operate, enabling them to reach customers and markets worldwide.

This global reach has led to increased competition, forcing businesses to innovate and improve their products and services. This competitive pressure can stimulate economic growth and benefit consumers through lower prices and better quality products.

On the flip side, globalization can also lead to job displacement and income inequality. As businesses move operations to countries with lower labor costs, jobs in higher-cost countries can be lost. This issue is particularly acute in manufacturing industries, where automation and offshoring have led to significant job losses.

Technology and Economic Inequality

While technology has brought numerous benefits, it has also contributed to economic inequality. As mentioned earlier, the impact of technology on productivity varies across sectors. Industries that have embraced technology have seen substantial productivity and wage gains, while those that have not have lagged behind.

This disparity has led to a widening income gap between workers in technologically advanced industries and those in less advanced ones. Furthermore, the rise of automation and artificial intelligence threatens to exacerbate this inequality by displacing jobs that involve routine tasks.

However, it's important to note that technology is not the sole driver of economic inequality. Other factors, such as government policies and market structures, also play a significant role.

Technology and Economic Policy

Technology has profound implications for economic policy. Policymakers must navigate the challenges posed by technological change while harnessing its benefits for economic growth.

One key challenge is ensuring that the benefits of technology are broadly shared. This involves investing in education and training to equip workers with the skills needed in a technologically advanced economy. It also involves implementing policies to support workers displaced by technological change.

Another challenge is regulating new technologies and markets. Policymakers must strike a balance between fostering innovation and protecting consumers and workers. This requires a deep understanding of technology and its potential impacts.

The Future of Technology and Economics

The relationship between technology and economics will continue to evolve in the future. Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, promise to bring new opportunities and challenges.

These technologies could further boost productivity and create new markets. However, they could also lead to job displacement and increased economic inequality. Policymakers and businesses must be proactive in addressing these challenges to ensure that the benefits of technology are broadly shared.

The role of technology in economics is multifaceted and complex. It has the potential to drive economic growth and create new opportunities, but it also poses significant challenges. Policymakers, businesses, and individuals must navigate these challenges to harness the full potential of technology for economic prosperity.

Wrapping Up: The Intricate Dance of Technology and Economics

As we conclude, it's clear that technology plays a critical role in shaping our economic landscape. It's a powerful tool that, when wielded correctly, can propel economic growth, spur innovation, and create new opportunities. However, it also presents challenges that require thoughtful solutions. As we move forward, the dance between technology and economics will continue to evolve, and we must be ready to adapt to its rhythm.

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Josephine Wolff; How Is Technology Changing the World, and How Should the World Change Technology?. Global Perspectives 1 February 2021; 2 (1): 27353. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2021.27353

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Technologies are becoming increasingly complicated and increasingly interconnected. Cars, airplanes, medical devices, financial transactions, and electricity systems all rely on more computer software than they ever have before, making them seem both harder to understand and, in some cases, harder to control. Government and corporate surveillance of individuals and information processing relies largely on digital technologies and artificial intelligence, and therefore involves less human-to-human contact than ever before and more opportunities for biases to be embedded and codified in our technological systems in ways we may not even be able to identify or recognize. Bioengineering advances are opening up new terrain for challenging philosophical, political, and economic questions regarding human-natural relations. Additionally, the management of these large and small devices and systems is increasingly done through the cloud, so that control over them is both very remote and removed from direct human or social control. The study of how to make technologies like artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things “explainable” has become its own area of research because it is so difficult to understand how they work or what is at fault when something goes wrong (Gunning and Aha 2019) .

This growing complexity makes it more difficult than ever—and more imperative than ever—for scholars to probe how technological advancements are altering life around the world in both positive and negative ways and what social, political, and legal tools are needed to help shape the development and design of technology in beneficial directions. This can seem like an impossible task in light of the rapid pace of technological change and the sense that its continued advancement is inevitable, but many countries around the world are only just beginning to take significant steps toward regulating computer technologies and are still in the process of radically rethinking the rules governing global data flows and exchange of technology across borders.

These are exciting times not just for technological development but also for technology policy—our technologies may be more advanced and complicated than ever but so, too, are our understandings of how they can best be leveraged, protected, and even constrained. The structures of technological systems as determined largely by government and institutional policies and those structures have tremendous implications for social organization and agency, ranging from open source, open systems that are highly distributed and decentralized, to those that are tightly controlled and closed, structured according to stricter and more hierarchical models. And just as our understanding of the governance of technology is developing in new and interesting ways, so, too, is our understanding of the social, cultural, environmental, and political dimensions of emerging technologies. We are realizing both the challenges and the importance of mapping out the full range of ways that technology is changing our society, what we want those changes to look like, and what tools we have to try to influence and guide those shifts.

Technology can be a source of tremendous optimism. It can help overcome some of the greatest challenges our society faces, including climate change, famine, and disease. For those who believe in the power of innovation and the promise of creative destruction to advance economic development and lead to better quality of life, technology is a vital economic driver (Schumpeter 1942) . But it can also be a tool of tremendous fear and oppression, embedding biases in automated decision-making processes and information-processing algorithms, exacerbating economic and social inequalities within and between countries to a staggering degree, or creating new weapons and avenues for attack unlike any we have had to face in the past. Scholars have even contended that the emergence of the term technology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries marked a shift from viewing individual pieces of machinery as a means to achieving political and social progress to the more dangerous, or hazardous, view that larger-scale, more complex technological systems were a semiautonomous form of progress in and of themselves (Marx 2010) . More recently, technologists have sharply criticized what they view as a wave of new Luddites, people intent on slowing the development of technology and turning back the clock on innovation as a means of mitigating the societal impacts of technological change (Marlowe 1970) .

At the heart of fights over new technologies and their resulting global changes are often two conflicting visions of technology: a fundamentally optimistic one that believes humans use it as a tool to achieve greater goals, and a fundamentally pessimistic one that holds that technological systems have reached a point beyond our control. Technology philosophers have argued that neither of these views is wholly accurate and that a purely optimistic or pessimistic view of technology is insufficient to capture the nuances and complexity of our relationship to technology (Oberdiek and Tiles 1995) . Understanding technology and how we can make better decisions about designing, deploying, and refining it requires capturing that nuance and complexity through in-depth analysis of the impacts of different technological advancements and the ways they have played out in all their complicated and controversial messiness across the world.

These impacts are often unpredictable as technologies are adopted in new contexts and come to be used in ways that sometimes diverge significantly from the use cases envisioned by their designers. The internet, designed to help transmit information between computer networks, became a crucial vehicle for commerce, introducing unexpected avenues for crime and financial fraud. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, designed to connect friends and families through sharing photographs and life updates, became focal points of election controversies and political influence. Cryptocurrencies, originally intended as a means of decentralized digital cash, have become a significant environmental hazard as more and more computing resources are devoted to mining these forms of virtual money. One of the crucial challenges in this area is therefore recognizing, documenting, and even anticipating some of these unexpected consequences and providing mechanisms to technologists for how to think through the impacts of their work, as well as possible other paths to different outcomes (Verbeek 2006) . And just as technological innovations can cause unexpected harm, they can also bring about extraordinary benefits—new vaccines and medicines to address global pandemics and save thousands of lives, new sources of energy that can drastically reduce emissions and help combat climate change, new modes of education that can reach people who would otherwise have no access to schooling. Regulating technology therefore requires a careful balance of mitigating risks without overly restricting potentially beneficial innovations.

Nations around the world have taken very different approaches to governing emerging technologies and have adopted a range of different technologies themselves in pursuit of more modern governance structures and processes (Braman 2009) . In Europe, the precautionary principle has guided much more anticipatory regulation aimed at addressing the risks presented by technologies even before they are fully realized. For instance, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation focuses on the responsibilities of data controllers and processors to provide individuals with access to their data and information about how that data is being used not just as a means of addressing existing security and privacy threats, such as data breaches, but also to protect against future developments and uses of that data for artificial intelligence and automated decision-making purposes. In Germany, Technische Überwachungsvereine, or TÜVs, perform regular tests and inspections of technological systems to assess and minimize risks over time, as the tech landscape evolves. In the United States, by contrast, there is much greater reliance on litigation and liability regimes to address safety and security failings after-the-fact. These different approaches reflect not just the different legal and regulatory mechanisms and philosophies of different nations but also the different ways those nations prioritize rapid development of the technology industry versus safety, security, and individual control. Typically, governance innovations move much more slowly than technological innovations, and regulations can lag years, or even decades, behind the technologies they aim to govern.

In addition to this varied set of national regulatory approaches, a variety of international and nongovernmental organizations also contribute to the process of developing standards, rules, and norms for new technologies, including the International Organization for Standardization­ and the International Telecommunication Union. These multilateral and NGO actors play an especially important role in trying to define appropriate boundaries for the use of new technologies by governments as instruments of control for the state.

At the same time that policymakers are under scrutiny both for their decisions about how to regulate technology as well as their decisions about how and when to adopt technologies like facial recognition themselves, technology firms and designers have also come under increasing criticism. Growing recognition that the design of technologies can have far-reaching social and political implications means that there is more pressure on technologists to take into consideration the consequences of their decisions early on in the design process (Vincenti 1993; Winner 1980) . The question of how technologists should incorporate these social dimensions into their design and development processes is an old one, and debate on these issues dates back to the 1970s, but it remains an urgent and often overlooked part of the puzzle because so many of the supposedly systematic mechanisms for assessing the impacts of new technologies in both the private and public sectors are primarily bureaucratic, symbolic processes rather than carrying any real weight or influence.

Technologists are often ill-equipped or unwilling to respond to the sorts of social problems that their creations have—often unwittingly—exacerbated, and instead point to governments and lawmakers to address those problems (Zuckerberg 2019) . But governments often have few incentives to engage in this area. This is because setting clear standards and rules for an ever-evolving technological landscape can be extremely challenging, because enforcement of those rules can be a significant undertaking requiring considerable expertise, and because the tech sector is a major source of jobs and revenue for many countries that may fear losing those benefits if they constrain companies too much. This indicates not just a need for clearer incentives and better policies for both private- and public-sector entities but also a need for new mechanisms whereby the technology development and design process can be influenced and assessed by people with a wider range of experiences and expertise. If we want technologies to be designed with an eye to their impacts, who is responsible for predicting, measuring, and mitigating those impacts throughout the design process? Involving policymakers in that process in a more meaningful way will also require training them to have the analytic and technical capacity to more fully engage with technologists and understand more fully the implications of their decisions.

At the same time that tech companies seem unwilling or unable to rein in their creations, many also fear they wield too much power, in some cases all but replacing governments and international organizations in their ability to make decisions that affect millions of people worldwide and control access to information, platforms, and audiences (Kilovaty 2020) . Regulators around the world have begun considering whether some of these companies have become so powerful that they violate the tenets of antitrust laws, but it can be difficult for governments to identify exactly what those violations are, especially in the context of an industry where the largest players often provide their customers with free services. And the platforms and services developed by tech companies are often wielded most powerfully and dangerously not directly by their private-sector creators and operators but instead by states themselves for widespread misinformation campaigns that serve political purposes (Nye 2018) .

Since the largest private entities in the tech sector operate in many countries, they are often better poised to implement global changes to the technological ecosystem than individual states or regulatory bodies, creating new challenges to existing governance structures and hierarchies. Just as it can be challenging to provide oversight for government use of technologies, so, too, oversight of the biggest tech companies, which have more resources, reach, and power than many nations, can prove to be a daunting task. The rise of network forms of organization and the growing gig economy have added to these challenges, making it even harder for regulators to fully address the breadth of these companies’ operations (Powell 1990) . The private-public partnerships that have emerged around energy, transportation, medical, and cyber technologies further complicate this picture, blurring the line between the public and private sectors and raising critical questions about the role of each in providing critical infrastructure, health care, and security. How can and should private tech companies operating in these different sectors be governed, and what types of influence do they exert over regulators? How feasible are different policy proposals aimed at technological innovation, and what potential unintended consequences might they have?

Conflict between countries has also spilled over significantly into the private sector in recent years, most notably in the case of tensions between the United States and China over which technologies developed in each country will be permitted by the other and which will be purchased by other customers, outside those two countries. Countries competing to develop the best technology is not a new phenomenon, but the current conflicts have major international ramifications and will influence the infrastructure that is installed and used around the world for years to come. Untangling the different factors that feed into these tussles as well as whom they benefit and whom they leave at a disadvantage is crucial for understanding how governments can most effectively foster technological innovation and invention domestically as well as the global consequences of those efforts. As much of the world is forced to choose between buying technology from the United States or from China, how should we understand the long-term impacts of those choices and the options available to people in countries without robust domestic tech industries? Does the global spread of technologies help fuel further innovation in countries with smaller tech markets, or does it reinforce the dominance of the states that are already most prominent in this sector? How can research universities maintain global collaborations and research communities in light of these national competitions, and what role does government research and development spending play in fostering innovation within its own borders and worldwide? How should intellectual property protections evolve to meet the demands of the technology industry, and how can those protections be enforced globally?

These conflicts between countries sometimes appear to challenge the feasibility of truly global technologies and networks that operate across all countries through standardized protocols and design features. Organizations like the International Organization for Standardization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and many others have tried to harmonize these policies and protocols across different countries for years, but have met with limited success when it comes to resolving the issues of greatest tension and disagreement among nations. For technology to operate in a global environment, there is a need for a much greater degree of coordination among countries and the development of common standards and norms, but governments continue to struggle to agree not just on those norms themselves but even the appropriate venue and processes for developing them. Without greater global cooperation, is it possible to maintain a global network like the internet or to promote the spread of new technologies around the world to address challenges of sustainability? What might help incentivize that cooperation moving forward, and what could new structures and process for governance of global technologies look like? Why has the tech industry’s self-regulation culture persisted? Do the same traditional drivers for public policy, such as politics of harmonization and path dependency in policy-making, still sufficiently explain policy outcomes in this space? As new technologies and their applications spread across the globe in uneven ways, how and when do they create forces of change from unexpected places?

These are some of the questions that we hope to address in the Technology and Global Change section through articles that tackle new dimensions of the global landscape of designing, developing, deploying, and assessing new technologies to address major challenges the world faces. Understanding these processes requires synthesizing knowledge from a range of different fields, including sociology, political science, economics, and history, as well as technical fields such as engineering, climate science, and computer science. A crucial part of understanding how technology has created global change and, in turn, how global changes have influenced the development of new technologies is understanding the technologies themselves in all their richness and complexity—how they work, the limits of what they can do, what they were designed to do, how they are actually used. Just as technologies themselves are becoming more complicated, so are their embeddings and relationships to the larger social, political, and legal contexts in which they exist. Scholars across all disciplines are encouraged to join us in untangling those complexities.

Josephine Wolff is an associate professor of cybersecurity policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Her book You’ll See This Message When It Is Too Late: The Legal and Economic Aftermath of Cybersecurity Breaches was published by MIT Press in 2018.

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Impact of science, technology and innovation on the economic and political power

• Original Article
• Published: 30 November 2015
• Volume 32 , pages 243–251, ( 2017 )

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• Raghunath Anant Mashelkar 1 , 2 , 3  

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In my essay, I will give some of my perceptions on the way science, technology and innovation is going to determine the economic and political power of the nations. The rapid paradigm shifts that are taking place in the world as it moves from super power bipolarity to multipolarity, as industrial capitalism gives way to green capitalism and digital capitalism, as information technology creates netizens out of citizens, as aspirations of the poor get fueled by the increasingly easier access to information, as the nations move from ‘independence’ to ‘interdependence,’ as national boundaries become notional, and as the concept of global citizenship gets evolved, we will be full of new paradigms and new paradoxes, there is no doubt that the rapid advance of science and technology will directly fuel many of these.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is an edited version of Bose–Einstein Lecture ‘Science, Technology, Innovation: Their Impact on Economic and Political Power’ which Professor Raghunath Mashelkar delivered at India International Centre, New Delhi, on December 13, 1999. The paper is of great significance to the special issue ‘Philosophy of Technological Culture’ in many ways. The interconnection of science, technology and innovation and its enforcement of paradigm seem to open a horizon for philosophy of technology and culture. The Bose–Einstein intellectual bond was both imminent and durable. It is only pertinent that the first ever English translation of Einstein’s papers on relativity originally published in German was made by Bose and his distinguished colleague Meghnad Saha and printed in Calcutta. The world ‘boson’ to describe elementary particles that obey the Bose–Einstein statistics is now a part of language and culture. The paper adds a cultural dimension to the development of science, technology and innovation.—Note from the Guest Editor.

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This essay is adopted from Bose–Einstein Lecture ‘Science, Technology, Innovation: Their Impact on Economic and Political Power’ which I delivered at India International Centre, New Delhi, on December 13, 1999.

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Mashelkar, R.A. Impact of science, technology and innovation on the economic and political power. AI & Soc 32 , 243–251 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-015-0639-y

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Essays on Economic Growth, Institutions and Technology Diffusion

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• Advisor(s): Ohanian, Lee

In the first chapter of this dissertation (joint with Esteban M�ndez-Chac�n), we study the short- and long-run effects of large firms on economic development. To do so, we use evidence from one of the largest multinationals of the 20th Century: The United Fruit Company (UFCo). The firm was given a large land concession in Costa Rica—one of the so-called “Banana Republics”—from 1889 to 1984. Using administrative census data with census-block geo-references from 1973 to 2011, we implement a geographic regression discontinuity (RD) design that exploits a quasi-random assignment of land. We find that the firm had a positive and persistent effect on living standards. Regions within the UFCo were 26% less likely to be poor in 1973 than nearby counterfactual locations, with only 63% of the gap closing over the following 3 decades. Company documents explain that a key concern at the time was to attract and maintain a sizable workforce, which induced the firm to invest heavily in local amenities that likely account for our result.

We then build a dynamic spatial model in which a firm's labor market power within a region depends on how mobile workers are across locations and run counterfactual exercises. The model is consistent with observable spatial frictions and the RD estimates, and shows that the firm increases aggregate welfare by 2.9%. This effect is increasing in worker mobility: If workers were half as mobile, the firm would have decreased aggregate welfare by 6%. The model also shows that a local monopsonist compensates workers mostly through local amenities keeping wages low, and leads to higher welfare levels than a counterfactual with perfectly competitive labor markets in all regions.

In the second chapter of this dissertation, I study an important question in the field of economic growth and development: How developing countries learn to adopt and use new technologies. In particular, the chapter studies how countries learn from each other through international trade. First, I build a panel of bilateral trade flows between industries in different countries. Matching this panel with data on industry-level productivity, I document how productivity grows systematically faster for countries that trade with partners with better technologies, but that this is reducing the gap between local and foreign productivity.

Second, I build a model in which knowledge transfers can occur through imported technology, leading to productivity growth. In my framework, agents have heterogeneous learning abilities: The probability of a producer adopting a technology slightly better than hers is larger than the probability of adopting a much more sophisticated one—the trade-off being that conditional on adoption, more sophisticated technologies lead to higher productivity. I document how the model matches the empirical dependence of productivity growth on productivity gaps across trading partners, and the firm size distribution. The model also highlights how ignoring differences in learning abilities can overestimate the impact of exposure to high-TFP trading partners, leading to suboptimal trade policies. I conclude that developing countries should direct relatively more trade to mid-productive countries—as opposed to very productive ones—to maximize technology transfers and increase growth.

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Combining theoretical work with careful historical description and analysis of new data sources, History Matters makes a strong case for a more historical approach to economics, both by argument and by example. Seventeen original essays, written by distinguished economists and economic historians, use economic theory and historical cases to explore how and why "history matters."

The chapters, which range in subject matter from the economic theory of irreversible investment to the nineteenth-century decline in U.S. rural fertility to the English poor law reform, are unified by three themes. The first explores the significance, causes, and consequences of path dependence in the evolution of technology and institutions. The second relates to the ways in which economic and political behavior are profoundly shaped and constrained by the cultural and political context inherited from history at a particular point in time. The final theme demonstrates the importance of integrating economic theory into historical research in the gathering and interpretation of data.

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William A. Sundstrom is Professor of Economics at Santa Clara University. Timothy W. Guinnane is Professor of Economics at Yale University. Warren C. Whatley is Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan.

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Co-Chairs: Ricardo Hausmann (Director, Center for International Development and Professor of the Practice of Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy School of Government) and José Domínguez (Professor of Structural Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville). 

The application of complexity science tools to the study of society allows for the analysis of phenomena that have been hard to identify and analyze with more traditional tools, especially in the field of Economics, which in the absence of these tools has tended to work with relatively low dimensional representations of reality. But the increasing availability of more detailed information of social phenomena makes it particularly useful to use tools that can exploit this informational richness. This opens up fascinating new horizons on almost all fields of knowledge in the social sciences.

In economics, it is widely accepted that technology is the key driver of economic growth of countries, regions and cities. Technological progress allows for  the more efficient production of more and better goods and services, which is what prosperity depends on.

However, the mechanisms through which technology is developed, adopted and used in production are complex. Their more detailed analysis can allow for new findings that could have important impacts in many areas of policy, including science policy, research and development, industrial policy, and both national and regional development policies. In fact, the concept of technology itself as well as the individual and social capabilities required for its development ca now be studied at a much more fine-grained level leading to potential contributions that may impact higher education, job creation and economic growth. Clearly, there are links between education, research and development, innovation and economic activity that are part of the process we aim to uncover.

The recent shift towards open innovation has resulted in increased flows of knowledge and new types of cooperation between education institutions, research organizations and business. Top corporate R&D investors worldwide lead the development of many emerging technologies. This is evident from an examination of the technology fields in which these companies intensified their inventive activities in the recent years and the contribution of top R&D investors to the overall development of these fields. Top corporate R&D investors accelerated their inventive activities in areas such as engines, automated driving systems, big data, artificial intelligence, 3-D printing and information and communication technologies.

It is necessary to remember that the two main ingredients for the development of new technology are codified knowledge in the form of theories, frameworks, scientific papers, patents, recipes, protocols, routines and instruction manuals and tacit knowledge or knowhow, which is acquired through learning by doing in a long process of imitation and repetition and which exists only in brains . The development of science, technology, innovation and production require both codified and tacit knowledge but the codifiable component of science and technology get registered, respectively, in the form of scientific publications and patents, and these are grouped into categories. Scientific publications, patents, industries, occupations and products are proxies of scientific knowledge, technological development, economic activity and human skills.

They form what is known as a multiplex network with six kinds of nodes where geographic location represents the last one. Understanding relations within each layer, e.g., the knowledge space, the patent space, the industry space, the occupation space, the product space and the country (or location space); and across layers should shed light on the foundations of countries economic development and the policies to be implemented in all of these areas to promote it.

Policies towards science, technology and innovation (STI) would benefit enormously from a deeper and more detailed understanding of the 6-fold multiplex that this research wants to uncover. What are the detailed connections between areas of science, as captured by journal publications and patents. What forms of human collaboration are necessary for the authorship of papers and patents? And for national and local authorities: What are the connections between a local effort in science and local innovation? What are the backward linkages of industrial diversification on the local capacity to create patents and scientific papers? Which occupations are key to facilitate the diffusion of industries to particular locations and what are the educational profiles of those occupations? What is the role of human mobility and the attraction of talent in the successful development of STI?

To sum up, this study group pursues three purposes:

• To analyze empirically the nature of the partnerships and ecosystem relations that underpin scientific and technological progress and its manifestation in the development of new industries, the appearance of new products and the formation of new teams of people with different and complementary occupations. To do this, we will carry out a research agenda to uncover these connections.  
• To develop tools in order to assess the position of each country and region in the multiplex and its evolution over time in order to evaluate their “adjacent possible” in a way that can help them plan their efforts towards progress.  
• To expand the dimensions that the quantitative tools of CID’s Atlas of Economic Complexity can offer its worldwide users, thus allowing policymakers, corporations, STI participants and the broader public to benefit from the results of the research.
• Southern Europe in the EU
• European Union Law & Government
• Future Challenges in Federated Cloud Computing
• Internationalization and Innovation in Higher Education (I2HE)
• Latin American Integration in the Globalization Era
• Studies on Life and Human Dignity
• Arts and Technologies in Leadership (ATL): The global pre-texts project
• Big Data and Machine Learning: Shaping the Future of Healthcare
• Commons-based peer production (CBPP)
• Communication and Health
• Data-centric Cloud Computing
• Botanical Collections and Herbaria: New Insights and Challenges
• Data Science
• Functional Foods, Bioactives and Human Health
• Global Governance
• Pollutants and toxic compounds in food and environment: zebrafish as a model for studying toxicological effects
• Teaching and Learning Science in Outdoor Environments (TeLeSOE).
• Urban Innovation
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Fellowship Opportunity

RAMÓN ARECES FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIP AT HARVARD CENTER FOR EUROPEAN STUDIES (CES)

The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) is pleased to announce the creation of the  Ramón Areces Fellowship . This new fellowship is made possible through a generous gift by the  Ramón Areces Foundation   to enable outstanding post-doctoral, early-career stage Spanish scholars to undertake research in-residence at CES for one academic year starting in September 2023. The Ramón Areces Fellowship is made possible through a generous gift by the  Ramón Areces Foundation . The Madrid-based foundation was established in 1976 to provide research and learning opportunities for Spanish citizens and to support initiatives that advance solutions to societal challenges in the realms of science, education, culture and economics.

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How José Vadi’s essay collection ‘Chipped’ explores the skateboarder’s experience

To a skater, the board is an extension of the body. And like a skateboard, an aging body can show life’s hard knocks.

“Skateboarding is truly rebellious and punk in its ethos,” said author José Vadi . “Nobody should care how old someone is just as much as someone shouldn’t care about their sexual orientation, gender, economic background. None of those things should be the determining factor of your ability to enjoy yourself on a skateboard.”

Vadi explores these ideas and more in his sophomore collection of essays, “Chipped: Writing from a Skateboarder’s Lens,” out on Tuesday, April 16.

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“Having an active relationship with skateboarding means having an active relationship with your body – but also the realization of your own mortality,” Vadi said in a recent phone interview from his Sacramento home. “That happens every time you try a trick, whether or not you’re gonna land or get injured, and as your body changes over time.”

As a skater, he has been keenly aware of his changing body with each passing decade. The book’s second essay documents a bad fall he had in 2019 and the excruciating pain that lingered on for weeks. His description of the experience, like much of the collection of essays, is written with sharp prose.

“As an older skater who is graying, you definitely feel self-conscious, not just because of your age but your ability at your age, or lack thereof,” he said.

Vadi grew up in Pomona and began skating in the mid-’90s, on the cusp of his teenage years. The book transitions between skating around Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire and skating the streets of San Francisco and Berkeley. He also looks at how much has changed since he began.

“In the wake of all these new skate parks that have developed over the past 20 years, these kids are so good out of the gate. The baseline barometer of what is considered proficient in skateboarding today is what we would consider pro in the ’90s,” He said.

The book provides insight into what it’s like for kids skating out of suburbia to find themselves – or other like-minded skaters who are also exploring the freedom the board bestows.

“You’re so bound to a car, and skateboarding gives you a vehicle, metaphorically and literally, to re-explore your world,” he said. “Growing up in the suburbs, things can get very dull, very quick, and skateboarding allows you to reenergize and reimagine an environment.”

That reimagining can be literal, such as turning an empty industrial space into a landscape bursting with creative possibilities. “It’s turning a loading dock into a skatepark,” says Vadi.

The essays also illustrate the impact that skating had on popular culture, touching on MTV, skating publications such as Thrasher Magazine, and videotapes of riders that got passed around skating scenes and shops around the country.

Music also plays a large role in the book. Vadi writes about how skating incorporated punk, hip-hop, heavy metal, and other genres that helped redefine its culture. In one essay, he investigates the connections between jazz and skating, arguing that the musician and composer known as Sun Ra is a skater despite never stepping on a board.

“If I’m writing through skateboarder’s lens and am really going to try to own that perspective, it has to be inclusive of as much of those different strands as possible,” he said.

As much as the book is about skating, it also reminds readers of the beauty in the documentation of ourselves and the interests we acquire through our lived experiences.

“I feel like ‘Chipped’ is a redocumentation by way of articulation,” he said. “It reflects this larger need to document … and to articulate the many ways that this thing that we care about can impact someone.”

“The point is not to be better than anyone else, or to necessarily compete,” he said. “The point is to enjoy the act itself and in comradery with others.”

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Poor Nations Are Writing a New Handbook for Getting Rich

Economies focused on exports have lifted millions out of poverty, but epochal changes in trade, supply chains and technology are making it a lot harder.

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By Patricia Cohen

Reporting from London

For more than half a century, the handbook for how developing countries can grow rich hasn’t changed much: Move subsistence farmers into manufacturing jobs, and then sell what they produce to the rest of the world.

The recipe — customized in varying ways by Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and China — has produced the most potent engine the world has ever known for generating economic growth. It has helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, create jobs and raise standards of living.

The Asian Tigers and China succeeded by combining vast pools of cheap labor with access to international know-how and financing, and buyers that reached from Kalamazoo to Kuala Lumpur. Governments provided the scaffolding: They built up roads and schools, offered business-friendly rules and incentives, developed capable administrative institutions and nurtured incipient industries.

But technology is advancing, supply chains are shifting, and political tensions are reshaping trade patterns. And with that, doubts are growing about whether industrialization can still deliver the miracle growth it once did. For developing countries, which contain 85 percent of the globe’s population — 6.8 billion people — the implications are profound.

Today, manufacturing accounts for a smaller share of the world’s output, and China already does more than a third of it . At the same time, more emerging countries are selling inexpensive goods abroad, increasing competition. There are not as many gains to be squeezed out: Not everyone can be a net exporter or offer the world’s lowest wages and overhead.

There are doubts that industrialization can create the game-changing benefits it did in the past. Factories today tend to rely more on automated technology and less on cheapworkers who have little training.

“You cannot generate enough jobs for the vast majority of workers who are not very educated,” said Dani Rodrik, a leading development economist at Harvard.

The process can be seen in Bangladesh, which the World Bank’s managing director called “one of the world’s greatest development stories” last year. The country built its success on turning farmers into textile workers.

Last year, though, Rubana Huq, chair of Mohammadi Group, a family-owned conglomerate, replaced 3,000 employees with automated jacquard machines to do complex weaving patterns.

The women found similar jobs elsewhere in the company. “But what follows when this happens on a large scale?” asked Ms. Huq, who is also president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

These workers don’t have training, she said. “They’re not going to turn into coders overnight.”

Recent global developments have accelerated the transition.

Supply chain meltdowns related to the Covid-19 pandemic and to sanctions prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove up the price of essentials like food and fuel, biting into incomes. High interest rates, imposed by central banks to quell inflation, set off another series of crises: Developing nations’ debts ballooned , and investment capital dried up.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund warned of the noxious combination of lower growth and higher debt.

The supercharged globalization that had encouraged companies to buy and sell in every spot around the planet has also been shifting. Rising political tensions, especially between China and the United States, are affecting where businesses and governments invest and trade.

Companies want supply chains to be secure as well as cheap, and they are looking at neighbors or political allies to provide them.

In this new era, Mr. Rodrik said, “the industrialization model — which practically every country that has become rich has relied on — is no longer capable of generating rapid and sustained economic growth.”

Nor is it clear what might replace it.

There’s a future in service jobs.

One alternative might be found in Bengaluru, a high-tech center in the Indian state of Karnataka.

Multinationals like Goldman Sachs, Victoria’s Secret and the Economist magazine have flocked to the city and set up hundreds of operational hubs — known as global capability centers — to handle accounting, design products, develop cybersecurity systems and artificial intelligence, and more.

Such centers are expected to generate 500,000 jobs nationwide in the next two to three years, according to the consulting firm Deloitte .

They are joining hundreds of biotech, engineering and information technology companies including homegrown giants like Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Infosys Limited. Four months ago, the American chip company AMD unveiled its largest global design center there.

“We have to move away from the idea of classic development stages, that you go from the farm to the factory and then from the factory to offices,” said Richard Baldwin , an economist at the IMD in Lausanne. “That whole development model is wrong.”

Two-thirds of the world’s output now comes from the service sector — a mishmash that includes dog walkers, manicurists, food preparers, cleaners and drivers, as well as highly trained chip designers, graphic artists, nurses, engineers and accountants.

It is possible to leapfrog to the service sector and grow by selling to businesses around the world, Mr. Baldwin argued. That is what helped India become the world’s fifth-largest economy .

In Bengaluru, formerly known as Bangalore, a general rise in middle-class living attracted more people and more businesses that, in turn, attracted more people and businesses, continuing the cycle, Mr. Baldwin explained.

Covid sped this transition, by forcing people to work remotely — from a different part of town, a different city or a different country.

In the new model, countries can focus growth around cities rather than a particular industry. “That creates economic activities which are fairly diverse,” Mr. Baldwin said.

“Think Bangalore, not South China,” he said.

Free markets are not enough.

Many developing nations remain focused on building export-oriented industries as the path to prosperity. And that’s how it should be, said Justin Yifu Lin , dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University.

Pessimism about the classic development formula, he said, has been fueled by a misguided belief that the growth process was automatic: Just clear the way for the free market and the rest will take care of itself.

Countries were often pressured by the United States and the international institutions to embrace open markets and hands-off governance.

Export-led growth in Africa and Latin America stumbled because governments failed to protect and subsidize infant industries, said Mr. Lin, a former chief economist at the World Bank.

“Industrial policy was taboo for a long time,” he said, and many of those who tried failed. But there were also success stories like China and South Korea.

“You need the state to help the private sector overcome market failures,” he said. “You cannot do it without industrial policy.”

It won’t work without education.

The overriding question is whether anything — services or manufacturing — can generate the type of growth that is desperately needed: broad based, large scale and sustainable.

Service jobs for businesses are multiplying, but many offering middle and high incomes are in areas like finance and tech, which tend to require advanced skills and education levels far above what most people in developing nations have.

In India, nearly half of college graduates don’t have the skills they need for these jobs, according to Wheebox , an educational testing service.

The mismatch is everywhere. The Future of Jobs report , published last year by the World Economic Forum, found that six in 10 workers will need retraining in the next three years, but the overwhelming majority won’t have access to it.

Other kinds of service jobs are proliferating, too, but many are neither well paid nor exportable. A barber in Bengaluru can’t cut your hair if you’re in Brooklyn.

That could mean smaller — and more uneven — growth.

Researchers at Yale University found that in India and several countries in sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural workers jumped into consumer service jobs and raised their productivity and incomes.

But there was a catch: The gains were “strikingly unequal” and disproportionately benefited the rich .

With a weakening global economy , developing countries will need to wring every bit of growth they can from every corner of their economies. Industrial policy is essential, Mr. Rodrik of Harvard said, but it should focus on smaller service firms and households because that is going to be the source of most future growth.

He and others caution that even so, gains are likely to be modest and hard won.

“The envelope has shrunk,” he said. “How much growth we can get is definitely less than in the past.”

An earlier version of this article misidentified the location of IMD. It is in Lausanne, not Geneva.

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Patricia Cohen writes about global economics and is based in London. More about Patricia Cohen

Feb 13, 2023

200-500 Word Example Essays about Technology

Got an essay assignment about technology check out these examples to inspire you.

Technology is a rapidly evolving field that has completely changed the way we live, work, and interact with one another. Technology has profoundly impacted our daily lives, from how we communicate with friends and family to how we access information and complete tasks. As a result, it's no surprise that technology is a popular topic for students writing essays.

But writing a technology essay can be challenging, especially for those needing more time or help with writer's block. This is where Jenni.ai comes in. Jenni.ai is an innovative AI tool explicitly designed for students who need help writing essays. With Jenni.ai, students can quickly and easily generate essays on various topics, including technology.

This blog post aims to provide readers with various example essays on technology, all generated by Jenni.ai. These essays will be a valuable resource for students looking for inspiration or guidance as they work on their essays. By reading through these example essays, students can better understand how technology can be approached and discussed in an essay.

Moreover, by signing up for a free trial with Jenni.ai, students can take advantage of this innovative tool and receive even more support as they work on their essays. Jenni.ai is designed to help students write essays faster and more efficiently, so they can focus on what truly matters – learning and growing as a student. Whether you're a student who is struggling with writer's block or simply looking for a convenient way to generate essays on a wide range of topics, Jenni.ai is the perfect solution.

The Impact of Technology on Society and Culture

Introduction:.

Technology has become an integral part of our daily lives and has dramatically impacted how we interact, communicate, and carry out various activities. Technological advancements have brought positive and negative changes to society and culture. In this article, we will explore the impact of technology on society and culture and how it has influenced different aspects of our lives.

Positive impact on communication:

Technology has dramatically improved communication and made it easier for people to connect from anywhere in the world. Social media platforms, instant messaging, and video conferencing have brought people closer, bridging geographical distances and cultural differences. This has made it easier for people to share information, exchange ideas, and collaborate on projects.

Positive impact on education:

Students and instructors now have access to a multitude of knowledge and resources because of the effect of technology on education . Students may now study at their speed and from any location thanks to online learning platforms, educational applications, and digital textbooks.

Negative impact on critical thinking and creativity:

Technological advancements have resulted in a reduction in critical thinking and creativity. With so much information at our fingertips, individuals have become more passive in their learning, relying on the internet for solutions rather than logic and inventiveness. As a result, independent thinking and problem-solving abilities have declined.

Positive impact on entertainment:

Technology has transformed how we access and consume entertainment. People may now access a wide range of entertainment alternatives from the comfort of their own homes thanks to streaming services, gaming platforms, and online content makers. The entertainment business has entered a new age of creativity and invention as a result of this.

Negative impact on attention span:

However, the continual bombardment of information and technological stimulation has also reduced attention span and the capacity to focus. People are easily distracted and need help focusing on a single activity for a long time. This has hampered productivity and the ability to accomplish duties.

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies has been one of the most significant technological developments of the past several decades. These cutting-edge technologies have the potential to alter several sectors of society, including commerce, industry, healthcare, and entertainment. 

As with any new and quickly advancing technology, AI and ML ethics must be carefully studied. The usage of these technologies presents significant concerns around privacy, accountability, and command. As the use of AI and ML grows more ubiquitous, we must assess their possible influence on society and investigate the ethical issues that must be taken into account as these technologies continue to develop.

What are Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning?

Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence in machines designed to think and act like humans. Machine learning is a subfield of AI that enables computers to learn from data and improve their performance over time without being explicitly programmed.

The impact of AI and ML on Society

The use of AI and ML in various industries, such as healthcare, finance, and retail, has brought many benefits. For example, AI-powered medical diagnosis systems can identify diseases faster and more accurately than human doctors. However, there are also concerns about job displacement and the potential for AI to perpetuate societal biases.

The Ethical Considerations of AI and ML

A. Bias in AI algorithms

One of the critical ethical concerns about AI and ML is the potential for algorithms to perpetuate existing biases. This can occur if the data used to train these algorithms reflects the preferences of the people who created it. As a result, AI systems can perpetuate these biases and discriminate against certain groups of people.

B. Responsibility for AI-generated decisions

Another ethical concern is the responsibility for decisions made by AI systems. For example, who is responsible for the damage if a self-driving car causes an accident? The manufacturer of the vehicle, the software developer, or the AI algorithm itself?

C. The potential for misuse of AI and ML

AI and ML can also be used for malicious purposes, such as cyberattacks and misinformation. The need for more regulation and oversight in developing and using these technologies makes it difficult to prevent misuse.

The developments in AI and ML have given numerous benefits to humanity, but they also present significant ethical concerns that must be addressed. We must assess the repercussions of new technologies on society, implement methods to limit the associated dangers, and guarantee that they are utilized for the greater good. As AI and ML continue to play an ever-increasing role in our daily lives, we must engage in an open and frank discussion regarding their ethics.

The Future of Work And Automation

Rapid technological breakthroughs in recent years have brought about considerable changes in our way of life and work. Concerns regarding the influence of artificial intelligence and machine learning on the future of work and employment have increased alongside the development of these technologies. This article will examine the possible advantages and disadvantages of automation and its influence on the labor market, employees, and the economy.

The Advantages of Automation

Automation in the workplace offers various benefits, including higher efficiency and production, fewer mistakes, and enhanced precision. Automated processes may accomplish repetitive jobs quickly and precisely, allowing employees to concentrate on more complex and creative activities. Additionally, automation may save organizations money since it removes the need to pay for labor and minimizes the danger of workplace accidents.

The Potential Disadvantages of Automation

However, automation has significant disadvantages, including job loss and income stagnation. As robots and computers replace human labor in particular industries, there is a danger that many workers may lose their jobs, resulting in higher unemployment and more significant economic disparity. Moreover, if automation is not adequately regulated and managed, it might lead to stagnant wages and a deterioration in employees' standard of life.

The Future of Work and Automation

Despite these difficulties, automation will likely influence how labor is done. As a result, firms, employees, and governments must take early measures to solve possible issues and reap the rewards of automation. This might entail funding worker retraining programs, enhancing education and skill development, and implementing regulations that support equality and justice at work.

IV. The Need for Ethical Considerations

We must consider the ethical ramifications of automation and its effects on society as technology develops. The impact on employees and their rights, possible hazards to privacy and security, and the duty of corporations and governments to ensure that automation is utilized responsibly and ethically are all factors to be taken into account.

Conclusion:

To summarise, the future of employment and automation will most certainly be defined by a complex interaction of technological advances, economic trends, and cultural ideals. All stakeholders must work together to handle the problems and possibilities presented by automation and ensure that technology is employed to benefit society as a whole.

The Role of Technology in Education

Introduction.

Nearly every part of our lives has been transformed by technology, and education is no different. Today's students have greater access to knowledge, opportunities, and resources than ever before, and technology is becoming a more significant part of their educational experience. Technology is transforming how we think about education and creating new opportunities for learners of all ages, from online courses and virtual classrooms to instructional applications and augmented reality.

Technology's Benefits for Education

The capacity to tailor learning is one of technology's most significant benefits in education. Students may customize their education to meet their unique needs and interests since they can access online information and tools. 

For instance, people can enroll in online classes on topics they are interested in, get tailored feedback on their work, and engage in virtual discussions with peers and subject matter experts worldwide. As a result, pupils are better able to acquire and develop the abilities and information necessary for success.

Challenges and Concerns

Despite the numerous advantages of technology in education, there are also obstacles and considerations to consider. One issue is the growing reliance on technology and the possibility that pupils would become overly dependent on it. This might result in a lack of critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, as students may become passive learners who only follow instructions and rely on technology to complete their assignments.

Another obstacle is the digital divide between those who have access to technology and those who do not. This division can exacerbate the achievement gap between pupils and produce uneven educational and professional growth chances. To reduce these consequences, all students must have access to the technology and resources necessary for success.

In conclusion, technology is rapidly becoming an integral part of the classroom experience and has the potential to alter the way we learn radically. 

Technology can help students flourish and realize their full potential by giving them access to individualized instruction, tools, and opportunities. While the benefits of technology in the classroom are undeniable, it's crucial to be mindful of the risks and take precautions to guarantee that all kids have access to the tools they need to thrive.

The Influence of Technology On Personal Relationships And Communication 

Technological advancements have profoundly altered how individuals connect and exchange information. It has changed the world in many ways in only a few decades. Because of the rise of the internet and various social media sites, maintaining relationships with people from all walks of life is now simpler than ever. 

However, concerns about how these developments may affect interpersonal connections and dialogue are inevitable in an era of rapid technological growth. In this piece, we'll discuss how the prevalence of digital media has altered our interpersonal connections and the language we use to express ourselves.

Direct Effect on Direct Interaction:

The disruption of face-to-face communication is a particularly stark example of how technology has impacted human connections. The quality of interpersonal connections has suffered due to people's growing preference for digital over human communication. Technology has been demonstrated to reduce the usage of nonverbal signs such as facial expressions, tone of voice, and other indicators of emotional investment in the connection.

Positive Impact on Long-Distance Relationships:

Yet there are positives to be found as well. Long-distance relationships have also benefited from technological advancements. The development of technologies such as video conferencing, instant messaging, and social media has made it possible for individuals to keep in touch with distant loved ones. It has become simpler for individuals to stay in touch and feel connected despite geographical distance.

The Effects of Social Media on Personal Connections:

The widespread use of social media has had far-reaching consequences, especially on the quality of interpersonal interactions. Social media has positive and harmful effects on relationships since it allows people to keep in touch and share life's milestones.

Unfortunately, social media has made it all too easy to compare oneself to others, which may lead to emotions of jealousy and a general decline in confidence. Furthermore, social media might cause people to have inflated expectations of themselves and their relationships.

A Personal Perspective on the Intersection of Technology and Romance

Technological advancements have also altered physical touch and closeness. Virtual reality and other technologies have allowed people to feel physical contact and familiarity in a digital setting. This might be a promising breakthrough, but it has some potential downsides. 

Experts are concerned that people's growing dependence on technology for intimacy may lead to less time spent communicating face-to-face and less emphasis on physical contact, both of which are important for maintaining good relationships.

In conclusion, technological advancements have significantly affected the quality of interpersonal connections and the exchange of information. Even though technology has made it simpler to maintain personal relationships, it has chilled interpersonal interactions between people. 

Keeping tabs on how technology is changing our lives and making adjustments as necessary is essential as we move forward. Boundaries and prioritizing in-person conversation and physical touch in close relationships may help reduce the harm it causes.

The Security and Privacy Implications of Increased Technology Use and Data Collection

The fast development of technology over the past few decades has made its way into every aspect of our life. Technology has improved many facets of our life, from communication to commerce. However, significant privacy and security problems have emerged due to the broad adoption of technology. In this essay, we'll look at how the widespread use of technological solutions and the subsequent explosion in collected data affects our right to privacy and security.

Data Mining and Privacy Concerns

Risk of Cyber Attacks and Data Loss

The Widespread Use of Encryption and Other Safety Mechanisms

The Privacy and Security of the Future in a Globalized Information Age

Obtaining and Using Individual Information

The acquisition and use of private information is a significant cause for privacy alarm in the digital age. Data about their customers' online habits, interests, and personal information is a valuable commodity for many internet firms. Besides tailored advertising, this information may be used for other, less desirable things like identity theft or cyber assaults.

Moreover, many individuals need to be made aware of what data is being gathered from them or how it is being utilized because of the lack of transparency around gathering personal information. Privacy and data security have become increasingly contentious as a result.

Data breaches and other forms of cyber-attack pose a severe risk.

The risk of cyber assaults and data breaches is another big issue of worry. More people are using more devices, which means more opportunities for cybercriminals to steal private information like credit card numbers and other identifying data. This may cause monetary damages and harm one's reputation or identity.

Many high-profile data breaches have occurred in recent years, exposing the personal information of millions of individuals and raising serious concerns about the safety of this information. Companies and governments have responded to this problem by adopting new security methods like encryption and multi-factor authentication.

Many businesses now use encryption and other security measures to protect themselves from cybercriminals and data thieves. Encryption keeps sensitive information hidden by encoding it so that only those possessing the corresponding key can decipher it. This prevents private information like bank account numbers or social security numbers from falling into the wrong hands.

Firewalls, virus scanners, and two-factor authentication are all additional security precautions that may be used with encryption. While these safeguards do much to stave against cyber assaults, they are not entirely impregnable, and data breaches are still possible.

The Future of Privacy and Security in a Technologically Advanced World

There's little doubt that concerns about privacy and security will persist even as technology improves. There must be strict safeguards to secure people's private information as more and more of it is transferred and kept digitally. To achieve this goal, it may be necessary to implement novel technologies and heightened levels of protection and to revise the rules and regulations regulating the collection and storage of private information.

Individuals and businesses are understandably concerned about the security and privacy consequences of widespread technological use and data collecting. There are numerous obstacles to overcome in a society where technology plays an increasingly important role, from acquiring and using personal data to the risk of cyber-attacks and data breaches. Companies and governments must keep spending money on security measures and working to educate people about the significance of privacy and security if personal data is to remain safe.

In conclusion, technology has profoundly impacted virtually every aspect of our lives, including society and culture, ethics, work, education, personal relationships, and security and privacy. The rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning has presented new ethical considerations, while automation is transforming the future of work. 

In education, technology has revolutionized the way we learn and access information. At the same time, our dependence on technology has brought new challenges in terms of personal relationships, communication, security, and privacy.

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Bank Runs, Fragility, and Regulation

We examine banking regulation in a macroeconomic model of bank runs. We construct a general equilibrium model where banks may default because of fundamental or self-fulfilling runs. With only fundamental defaults, we show that the competitive equilibrium is constrained efficient. However, when banks are vulnerable to runs, banks’ leverage decisions are not ex-ante optimal: individual banks do not internalize that higher leverage makes other banks more vulnerable. The theory calls for introducing minimum capital requirements, even in the absence of bailouts.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the Federal Reserve System, or the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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Essay on Technology – A Boon or Bane for Students

500+ words essay on technology for students.

In this essay on technology, we are going to discuss what technology is, what are its uses, and also what technology can do? First of all, technology refers to the use of technical and scientific knowledge to create, monitor, and design machinery. Also, technology helps in making other goods that aid mankind.

Essay on Technology – A Boon or Bane?

Experts are debating on this topic for years. Also, the technology covered a long way to make human life easier but the negative aspect of it can’t be ignored. Over the years technological advancement has caused a severe rise in pollution . Also, pollution has become a major cause of many health issues. Besides, it has cut off people from society rather than connecting them. Above all, it has taken away many jobs from the workers class.

Familiarity between Technology and Science

As they are completely different fields but they are interdependent on each other. Also, it is due to science contribution we can create new innovation and build new technological tools. Apart from that, the research conducted in laboratories contributes a lot to the development of technologies. On the other hand, technology extends the agenda of science.

Vital Part of our Life

Regularly evolving technology has become an important part of our lives. Also, newer technologies are taking the market by storm and the people are getting used to them in no time. Above all, technological advancement has led to the growth and development of nations.

Negative Aspect of Technology

Although technology is a good thing, everything has two sides. Technology also has two sides one is good and the other is bad. Here are some negative aspects of technology that we are going to discuss.

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With new technology the industrialization increases which give birth to many pollutions like air, water, soil, and noise. Also, they cause many health-related issues in animals, birds, and human beings.

Exhaustion of Natural Resources

New technology requires new resources for which the balance is disturbed. Eventually, this will lead to over-exploitation of natural resources which ultimately disturbs the balance of nature.

Unemployment

A single machine can replace many workers. Also, machines can do work at a constant pace for several hours or days without stopping. Due to this, many workers lost their job which ultimately increases unemployment .

Types of Technology

Generally, we judge technology on the same scale but in reality, technology is divided into various types. This includes information technology, industrial technology , architectural technology, creative technology and many more. Let’s discuss these technologies in brief.

Industrial Technology

This technology organizes engineering and manufacturing technology for the manufacturing of machines. Also, this makes the production process easier and convenient.

Creative Technology

This process includes art, advertising, and product design which are made with the help of software. Also, it comprises of 3D printers , virtual reality, computer graphics, and other wearable technologies.

Information Technology

This technology involves the use of telecommunication and computer to send, receive and store information. Internet is the best example of Information technology.

FAQs on Essay on Technology

Q.1 What is Information technology?

A –  It is a form of technology that uses telecommunication and computer systems for study. Also, they send, retrieve, and store data.

Q.2 Is technology harmful to humans?

 A – No, technology is not harmful to human beings until it is used properly. But, misuses of technology can be harmful and deadly.

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Essay: Benefits Of Information Technology On Economic And Social Development

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Benefits Of Information Technology On Economic And Social Development

Abstract: The correlation between technology, sustainable development, socio-economic issues have assumed significance in the changing global world In the new millennium, there is no denying the fact that information and communication technologies play a key role in the growth of a country. There is substantial evidence that technology has power to harbor progress as it affects many dimensions of societal and economic aspects like education health and quality of life. It is pertinent to develop an understanding about the methods and techniques in which technology can be utilized respond to the emerging paradigms of development in a responsible manner. During the last two decades, the press in Kashmir found itself caught in a whirlpool of dynamic changes as were the other media. The traditional role of media of transmitting and disseminating information to people has undergone a vast change in its presentation and contextualization. This paper focuses on the on the role and extent of information and communication technology (ICT) in socio economic development, highlighting the utilization of technology for sustained development and the potential of technology as an enabler in the digital disparities existing in the developing world. It will also look at the policy perspectives in dealing with socio political and techno-economic aspects in building ICT policies for development in Kashmir. It is in responding to these questions that the relationship between development and ICT becomes evident

Key words: Technology, development, socio-economic development, reach, access, disparities

Introduction

Advances in information and communication technologies have facilitated global communication network that transcends national boundaries and has an impact on policy. There is a prevalent credence that information and communication technologies (ICT) is significant for the development of a nation. Besides, the capacity of ICT to influence numerous facets of indicators of development cannot be diluted. Recent findings show that ICT, which includes the traditional media comprising of radio television, press and the new computer based technology, plays a vital role in advancing economic growth and reducing poverty.ICT can be used to directly influence the productivity, cost effectiveness and competitiveness in industries. On the other hand, the results for not being able to recognize the benefits of ICT can also be devastating. It can be inferred that without a strategic integrated approach it will intricate to take advantage of the potential ICT driving the socioeconomic development. While the literature from various disciplines provides a myriad of definitions and elements of socio-economic development, the fundamental question of what constitutes socio-economic development specifically one that is ICT-driven, from the perspective of ordinary citizens, remains unanswered. (Baqir,Neveed; Palvia, Prashant; Nemati, Hamid and Casey, Kathleen, 2011). In the 1990s, globalization and the increasing information intensity of economic activity, coupled with technological change made ICT critical to competitiveness and growth. The application of ICT to economic expansion, political and social development signifies development in various sectors of production and distribution, growth of political institutions and improvement in social structures and modernization. Information and communication technology ICT) is playing a vital role in connecting communities in national, regional and global development. ICT is being utilized to fight poverty, promote economic growth and support development efforts in the developing world. Most of these efforts are based on the international communication policy debates which emphasize that creating digital opportunities is not something that happens after addressing ‘core’ development challenges; it is a key component of addressing those challenges in the 21st century (G8, 2002). Nevertheless, there are roughly one billion people in about in the developing countries without any kind of connection to communication technologies (United Nations, 2006). The growth of ICTs has been by the forces of globalization and privatization on the one hand and integration of telecommunication and information technology on the other; some of these effects have been experienced in the developing world. Meanwhile, the developing countries continue to experience the commercial divide where e-commerce reaches only some and the digital divide is being regarded as one of the biggest non-tariff barrier to the world trade today

The term Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) was coined to reflect the seamless convergence of digital processing and telecommunications As commonly perceived it is not limited to the modern hi- tech gadgets or networks. In fact, the ICTs have been in use since long, for instance, in postal services and radio as communication medium to transmit information even to very remote places. For ease of use, we can divide these into old and new ICTs wherein the former one includes Radio, Television, Telephone, Fax, Telegram, etc while the later comprises of data networks, e-mail World Wide Web (or internet) and cutting-edge wireless & wire line technologies (Attique Ahmad,2009). Information and communication technologies generally refer to an expanding assembly of technologies that are used to handle information and aid communication. These include hardware, software media for collection, storage, processing, transmission and presentation of information in any format (i.e., voice, data, text and image), computers the Internet, CD-ROMs, email, telephone, radio, television, video, digital cameras etc. The advent of personal computers, the Internet and mobile telephone during the last two decades has provided a much wider choice in collection, storage, processing, transmission and presentation of information in multiple formats to meet the diverse requirement and skills of people. Over the past decade, developing countries and international development agencies have begun to formulate steps to incorporate ICT policies into their mainstream economic and development policies. National e strategies focusing on e-governance, e-business, e-education and telemedicine involve the use of ICTs to benefit communities within and across countries and regions

ICT for Development

A tool for socio-economic development, Hargittai (2002) and other studies have shown that the rate of information technology diffusion is correlated to the general level of socioeconomic development. A most recent finding is that ICT plays a vital role in advancing economic growth and reducing poverty. A survey of firms carried out in 56 developing countries finds that firms that use ICT grow faster, invest more, and are more productive profitable than those that do not (Microsoft Whitepaper, 2004). ICTs can be used to directly influence the productivity, cost effectiveness competitiveness in industries, which is the advantage developing countries can build their economies upon. Catching up on developed economies in terms of application of technology and resulting economic benefits had never been that easier. On the other hand, the results for not being able to adopt ICTs can also be disastrous

As the world economy begins to recover from one of the worst economic crises in decades, information and communication technologies (ICT) is bound to play an increasingly prominent role as key multiplier for dissemination of information leading to growth considering the fact that the new media technology should be available ,accessible and well-developed when so many new messages being transmitted quickly and effectively. The emerging technology has ushered an era which has given the developing nations the potential channels of information and communication that can play an important part in economic and social development. The potent power of ICT is critical not only for developed countries for sustaining and enhancing the usage of technology to share information and analysis in crucial areas like environment, health, labor conditions but also developing countries in fostering structural transformations, increasing efficiency and diffusion of technology within their territories and vis-a-vis more advanced economies. If ICT plays a central role in ensuring economic sustainability, it can and must play an equally central role in promoting balance between environment and development and as a key element of creating awareness, shaping public opinion required for revitalization of environment. Sustainability, in all its components should be a priority for policymakers, businesses, and civil society alike to foster a more just, more inclusive and crisis-resilient world. ICT and the ICT industry must now rise to the challenge. The advancement in digital technology have further paved in viable measures for transforming the economies and communities which will enhance understanding, boost fiscal gains and provide people at the grass root level to play an important role in bringing about a change in their group and community. ICTs are persuasive and non-linear in nature providing the user with multiple ways in which to make optimum use of these technologies. The diversity and fluidity nature of the internet driven technology is blurring the distinction between the producers and consumers of media. Bewildering amount of information available through the ICTs has dissolved spatial and temporal boundaries and the way information is shared and disseminated is changing. ICTs for human development are not about technology, but about people using the technology to meet some basic need. Understanding human requirements takes time and effort. User needs assessments are essential in planning the introduction of ICTs to communities, no matter what their status or Human Development Index. Information technology and other media have the potential to to enhance the prospects of various developments in any third world nation such as education, agriculture, economics, social infrastructure and other issues that can alleviate the poor condition of man. The new technology can be highly participatory in the field of communication. It has been noted in the developing the developing world the internet is considered to be a powerful tool for development that will allow countries to leap-frog ahead, economically and socially. Any nation keen on the development and well being of all its citizens and the healthy functioning of democracy has to provide access to information to everyone. Hamelink in his book ‘The Ethics of Cyberspace’ (2000) points out the inequality in the use of media. According to him, there is unequal access to the new networks and the services between the developed and underdeveloped countries.

From Digital Divide to Digital Opportunities: ICT Policies for Development

The success of green revolution in Asia specifies that a participatory approach and access to knowledge, technology and indicate service can effectively contribute to expanding and energizing development in general and agricultural development in particular (Munyua, 2000). The government usually has the resources, the infrastructure and the authority to implementing social policies aimed at reducing the digital divide. The biggest advantage of the government intervention is its enormous reach and wherewithal to carry out and sustain a programme; hardly any other agency can come close to the size of the government intervention (Joshi, 2004). The policy challenges to bridge the digital divide and turn it into digital opportunities development in South Asia need to be focused on several issues. These issues include the levels of technology, the penetration and access to ICTs content creation, identifying areas for ICT intervention, legal and regulatory frameworks, integration of the best of older media, the socio-economic impact of ICTs on its people, integration of ICTs into the development agenda, and measurement and evaluation of benefits of ICTs in scaling up development in the community ICT as a change agent

ICTs are believed to bring about social and economic development by creating an enabling environment. Almost every single activity in the modern world is becoming more dependent on the application of ICTs for one use or another. The benefits of ICTs reach even those who do not themselves have first-hand access to them. Through ICTs, for example, a doctor in a rural village can get up-to-date information regarding certain diseases and can use that information to advice and treat patients; an agricultural extension worker can learn new technologies, rainfall forecasts, commodity prices etc and use that information to advice farmers in rural villages; etc. The importance of ICTs in development process was long recognized and access to ICTs was even made one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goal, which emphasizes the benefits of new technologies, especially ICTs in the fight against poverty. "With 10 percent increase in high-speed internet connections, economic growth increases by 1.3 percent" observed recent World Bank report on Information and Communication for Development (World Bank, 2006). The same report also observed "connectivity the Internet or mobile phones — is increasingly bringing market information, financial services, and health services to remote areas, and is to change people’s lives in unprecedented ways

Following the Millennium Declaration, key stakeholders from various sectors came together in Geneva in 2003 and again in Tunis to discuss extensively on various aspects of ICT for development. There is undoubtedly a wide gap existing between the information poor and information rich. The vast majority in rural areas are still deprived of the benefits of ICTs.This is crucial in the developing countries where the gap between the rich and poor is of a high ratio. Towards this end, ten targets were identified to be achieved by 2015 along with recommendations based on different action lines (ITU, 2005). These targets range from connecting villages, schools, health centers, libraries government agencies to developing content, incorporating ICTs in school curricula and providing broadcasting services to all people in the world. The action lines address issues related to, among others, ICT infrastructure, capacity building, cyber security, an enabling policy environment and ICT applications in agriculture, education, business or the environment. One of the defining features of economic globalization is the rise of global media and media systems that tend to reflect the patterns of overall political economy (Herman and McChesney,1998). Developing countries in Asia recognize the potential of ICTs for development of their economies and societies. The policies formulated have to address a multitude of factors such as levels of technology and supporting infrastructure, access to the internet, cost of ICT applications, the legal and regulatory framework and the integration of ICT policies into national and economic development policies before a nation can take full advantage of the potential of the new technology. Consequently emerging markets like China and India, have accommodated themselves into the wave of economic, technological and social change. International considerations of finance and trade balances are confronting the global business. Liberalization opened up many national economies to transnational activities wherein parts are manufactured and assembled in any country with efficient labor, technology and facilities. Democratizing democratic societies and also bringing in democracy to non-democracies has been an important role of the internet driven technology. Emerging as a powerful alternative form of communication, it has played key role in setting the agenda for politics, governance and the media. Promoting participation and interactivity, the views of the users are accommodated as the lack of space constraint improves information content. Incorporation of ICTs into Economic Policies and Development Agendas

The incorporation of ICTs into economic policies and national development agendas must involve the public and private sectors as both have important roles to play in the diffusion of ICT applications. The private sector is primarily responsible for providing access and competitive private sector led markets go a long way toward making these services widely available. The public sector’s main role is to provide a sound policy framework regulate markets where they do not work well enough on their own, and support additional service provision where markets do not achieve economic and social objectives. The public private partnership can be seen where mobile phones are widely shared and rented out by the call by local entrepreneurs serving as de facto public telephones. In the villages of Bangladesh, which are among the poorest in the world, women entrepreneurs provide payphone services at a profit using mobile phones (Lawson and Meyenn, 2000). The public sector is an increasingly important user of ICT, particularly in context of e- government, making it a major actor in fostering ICT uptake. In addition to regulation, the Indian government often plays a key role in planning and procurement. It has convened task forces which led planning and reform, and both national and state governments have encouraged investment in infrastructure and supported efforts to bring telephony and Internet connectivity to rural villages (United Nations, 2006 example of such a policy can be found in Andhra Pradesh in India where the higher bandwidth information transmission is being implementing under a fully privately financed scheme

In India various State agricultural boards (APMCs) have formed an agricultural marketing information network by hosting a website www.agamarket.nic.in. This website links the various local markets, major agricultural markets and APMCs of the country and provides computerized market data, arrivals, dispatches, sales transport, losses and wastage along with other issues. These commodities have been divided into seven categories: cereals, pulses, fibres, spices, fruits, vegetables and oilseeds, which help the farmer to surf for the commodities marketwise. It is aimed to create a nationwide network for the speedy collection and dissemination of market information, which reduces intermediary costs and bring benefit to a cross-section of farmers and consumers. E-health has been envisaged as one of the strategies using ICT in the administration and provision of health services and health information (World Bank, 2006). One of the applications is in the field of telemedicine. Hospitals and health centers in remote locations are linked via satellite with super-specialty hospitals at major cities and smaller health centers in distant and rural areas. Costs involved are minimized and it can alleviate prohibitive travel cost and associated costs for patients. Videoconferencing also opens up new possibilities for continuing health education or training for isolated or rural health practitioners. An interesting private sector initiative is the ITC’s International Business Division’s e-choupal initiative in rural India to empower farmers and is the single-largest information technology based intervention by a corporate entity in rural India. The e-choupal website www.e-choupal.com, provides agricultural inputs, information about the products and services to enhance farm productivity, scientific farming practices, market prices of crops home and abroad, and the weather broadcast all in local (Hindi) language. It even has 4-crop specific websites for Soya, Coffee, Aqua and Wheat. The full contents of the website is available to the registered Choupal Sanchalaks only (lead farmer) who act as the interface between the computer and the farmers due to their literacy constraints and these lessons are implemented by the farmers with the assistance of the ITC workers. This movement is reaching 6,50,000 farmers of 6000 villages through 1,020 kiosks and in the coming decade is planned to cover million farmers by installing 20,000 e-choupals

The developing countries are enthusiastic adopters of ICT policies particularly in trying to promote internet access. Chandrasekhar (2006) the nature of diffusion of internet technology in India and suggests that there are two routes through which technology can impact on the quality of life. Skilled labour plays an important role because it affects the absorption rate of ICT applications within a country. Elite users, who use the technology to share information and analysis in crucial areas such as the environment, health, corporate practices, and labour conditions, can debate develop, and contribute to creating international best practices in the relevant area. These can provide the basis for national policy and for mobilization of public opinion nationally and internationally to change policy regimes. This would be the top-down, trickle-down means for the technology to influence human development. The other route would be for technology to be diffused, leading to use and participation of the disadvantaged in the formulation and implementation of policies as well as to the direct provision of improved services that affect the quality of their lives. This is the more democratic face of technology and the most effective way in which it can be used to advance human development goals Unfortunately, the current extent and pattern of diffusion of technology in India is such that it is the first of these that overwhelmingly predominates and is likely to continue to do so in the foreseeable future. The global corporate ideology is firmly integrated into the discourse of the potential of ICT and are regarded as economic components of global economy. ICTs are central to the process of development and the impact of ICTs on development is not static. ICT in J&K

The democratization of information, existing political structures and the receding transnational boundaries makes it pertinent to place these changes in the context of their implications both for the individuals as well as the policy makers. The role and importance of the media is all the more significant and critical in a place like J&K state which has been caught in an imbroglio in the South Asian region on the world map for nearly two decades now because of which development issues took a back seat

In J&K, e-governance roadmap has been prepared with a vision to deliver various schemes at the doorstep of the common man. The state has made a mission to take the state from a `least achiever slab’ to the `leader slab’. Many IT projects have been initiated by the government where it wants to focus on like agriculture, horticulture, tourism, rural development, education, health care and other sectors. This is also reflected in the outlays embarked by the government for the concerned sectors. The underlying premise, because of the flexibility of ICTs, is to fasten the transmission and dissemination of information from the government to its citizens, provided the government is interested in sharing the information with the citizens, Inadequate information capacities of many third world countries are a serious obstacle to their own efforts to combat their issues that confront them in the process of development. The initiatives taken by the government for development in present times gain more prominence and currency when the information is disseminated using ICTs . E-governance is one of the mechanisms used by the government for good governance as citizens, processes and ICTs are interconnected with ease. ICTs have been recognized as tool for connecting with the people and sharing information. Consequently, it will result in better transparency, improved information dissemination, higher administrative efficiency and improved public services and put the government through high level of scrutiny. ICTs aim and strive for the betterment of the world by spreading relevant information.

The IT policy of J&K lays the foundation stone for e-governance and other initiatives to provide guidelines for all related areas. IT in industry education, employment and infrastructure has emerged as a key to the economic development of the region. The IT policy encourages e-tourism, e-health and e-commerce in the State. The IT initiatives provide information about financial assistance, policies, interest subsidies, schemes. Setting up of portals and kiosks have been encouraged for service delivery to the citizens. Establishment of CSC (Common Service Centers) on VSAT connectivity, CIC Community Information Centers) have been aimed at taking IT to the grass root level. The Centre provides training and other IT facilities to the rural masses. In J&K there is a lot of potential for using CIC’s as service delivery centers. The state website of K&K government provides information about employment opportunities, tenders and other relevant information. Automation of transport, e-agriculture, WIFI, e-tourism, e tuitions, tele-counselling and telemedicine, mother and child care, e-districts are some of the ICT based initiatives of the government in the e governance schemes of the J&K state.(JK Govt.2012) It is very important to harness the strength of ICT to provide effective and transparent service to the citizens of the state

Technology driven world is a reality today. From agriculture to industrial, technological revolution ushered in a trail blazing change in almost all spheres of contemporary society. ICTs have emerged as one of the important parameters for the development and sustainability of a country. ICTs will enable surveillance to exercise surveillance over their citizens more effectively than before. The proliferation of ICTs in the home will individualize information, consumption to a degree that makes the formation of a democratic, public opinion no more than an illusion.

The process of development can be harnessed by the application of ICT. New digital technology create new choices for people in education, economics, production which helps in growth. This perspective offers an essential and vast change in economics, politics education, culture, environment. ICTs will grow and have a large expanse of productivity and also create employment opportunities, will advance and further the efficiency for other forms of production, whether independent and decentralized. In politics, growing access to increasing amounts of data and information will contribute to a better democratic process and the citizens will feel more empowered and information rich to participate in the decision making process at various levels. Nations around the world are making investments in ICT in order to bring their people together by establishing networks aimed towards development.

References Ahmad Attique (2009): ICT as an enabler of Socio Economic Development PITC, Lahore,

Baqir, M. Neveed; Palvia, Prashant; Nemati, Hamid; and Casey, Kathleen, "Defining ICT and Socio-Economic Development" (2011). AMCI 2011 All Submissions. Paper Chandrasekhar, C. P. (2006). ‘India is Online but most Indians are not’. The Hindu,

Flak, L.S., Olsen, D.H. and Wolcott, P (2005). " Local E-Government in Norway", Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, Vol 17, No.2, pp G8 (2002) Digital Opportunities for All: Meeting the Challenge, Report of the Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force), Retrieved from http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/2002kananaskis/dotforce_reportcard.pdf Hargittai, E. (2002) Second-Level Digital Divide: Differences in People’s Online Skills. First Monday ITU (2005) Connect the World, 16 June http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2005/07.html

ITU (2004) icts as enabler of Development: A Microsoft white paper December 2004 Retrieved March 24 2013 www.itu.int/wsis/stocktaking/docs/activities ICTwhite%20paper

Joshi, Subhash (2004). ‘Bridging the Digital Divide in India’, In Kiran Prasad (Ed.) (2004). Information and Communication Development, New Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation Lawson, Cina and Natalie Meyenn (2000). Bridging Cellular Phone Service

Rural Areas: Grameen Telecom and Village Payphones in Bangladesh, Viewpoint 205, Washington, DC: World Bank .Retrieved March 25, worldbank.org/viewpoint/html notes/205/205lawson.pdf

Munyua, H. (2000). Information and communication technologies for rural development and food security: Lessons from field experiences in countries. ICT workshop report. CAB International, Africa Regional Centre Revised E-Governance Plan (2010). Government of Jammu & Kashmir. United Nations (2006). The Digital Divide Report: ICT Diffusion Index 2005, New York: World Bank (2006). Information and Communications for Development: Trends and Policies, Washington, D.C. World Bank

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This is the most consequential technology in America

It’s the most popular social app and music service, the healthiest economy on the internet and ai training fuel.

(Spoiler alert: It’s YouTube.)

You think you know YouTube. It’s where billions of people learn how to change a tire, follow a favorite yoga workout or catch footage of Monday’s solar eclipse .

But maybe you don’t know that YouTube is also the most popular way to hear music and one of the country’s largest cable TV providers. YouTube is the healthiest economy on the internet. And it has been rocket fuel for artificial intelligence.

I’m digging into YouTube’s identity because it’s essential to understand the influence of technologies in our lives. As popular as YouTube is, its power over the internet and us is somehow still underrated .

Let me try to persuade you that YouTube is the most consequential technology in America:

YouTube is No. 1 in video and music listening

YouTube might be best known for wasting a few minutes at a supermarket checkout or on the toilet. (Sorry.)

YouTube, however, is also America’s top living room streaming destination. Data from Nielsen consistently shows that Americans spend more time watching YouTube on TV sets than we do any streaming service including Netflix.

There isn’t reliable data counting the combined time we stream on TV, phones, computers and other devices, but YouTube would likely be tops on that measure, too.

YouTube TV, which is like cable TV but accessed over the internet, is also now one of the leading cable TV providers in the country.

In music, more people tune into songs on YouTube than we do on Spotify, the radio or any other audio service.

In a survey of people in several countries by Mark Mulligan of MIDiA Research, about two-thirds of respondents watched music videos on YouTube. About 43 percent listened to music online another way and 31 percent have a streaming music subscription like those from Spotify and Apple Music.

P.S. The most widely used social app among American adults is YouTube by a mile, Pew Research Center says . The most widely used app among teens isn’t TikTok. It’s YouTube again by a mile.

It’s the healthiest economy on the internet

If you post on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit or X, you are basically making those companies’ products for free. YouTube doesn’t work that way.

From each dollar that advertisers pay for commercials on many millions of YouTube videos, the person who made the video gets 55 cents. Google, which owns YouTube, keeps the rest.

Shira Ovide

YouTube has had this financial arrangement for close to 20 years. Still today, no other large app has such a consistent way for people to earn income from what they create and post online.

YouTube’s revolutionary payment system matters to you even if you never earn a dime from making a YouTube video.

A healthy internet economy, like a well-functioning United States economy, is one in which everyone believes he has a shot to thrive. That includes you as the viewer, the people making the information or entertainment you’re watching and the companies distributing the material.

YouTube is far from perfect on this score, but it may be the closest thing to the financially ideal online economy.

By the way, if you buy a subscription to YouTube Premium, which lets you watch videos without ads, YouTube hands over portions of your money to the video makers, in proportion to your viewing time.

If you watch a lot of videos from MrBeast and Not Just Bikes , those YouTube channels will receive a large chunk of your subscription money. The relatively democratic system to pay the people making stuff is not how most music services like Spotify or Netflix work.

Even if you only listen to jazz music on Spotify, Taylor Swift will still get a bunch of your subscription money.

YouTube is essential, controversial AI data fuel

You know an app is important when it becomes a wrestling match for companies grabbing every morsel of data to “train” their AI .

According to the New York Times, ChatGPT owner OpenAI invented a way to suck up more than 1 million hours of YouTube videos and podcasts and turned the spoken words into fuel to coach its AI. Google has also transcribed YouTube videos to train its AI software, the Times reported.

What OpenAI did might violate YouTube’s terms of service and what Google did might violate the copyright of people who make YouTube videos, the Times reported.

OpenAI said it uses “numerous sources including publicly available data and partnerships for nonpublic data." Google reiterated the YouTube CEO’s recent comment that the company’s AI is trained with some YouTube material, “in accordance with our agreements with YouTube creators.”

YouTube is definitely flawed. It’s been used to mislead and harass people and to spread propaganda . But for good or for ill, YouTube matters even more than you probably think.

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Call for Papers: 2024 IEEE Region 10 Symposium (TENSYMP 2024)

Conference Date: 27 – 29 September, 2024

About TENSYMP 2024  

“technological advancements to help society overcome various socio-economic and health challenges”.

The conference aims to provide an active platform for research scientists, engineers, and practitioners throughout the world to present their latest research findings, ideas, and applications in the fields of interest which fall under the scope of IEEE. Prospective authors are invited to submit original research papers (not being considered for publication elsewhere) in standard IEEE conference template describing new theoretical and/or experimental research results in the following tracks (but are not limited to:)

Track-1 Computer and Information Technology

Chair: Prof. M N Hoda – BVICAM, New Delhi

Artificial & Augmented intelligence and their applications, Biometrics & RFID, Computational Intelligence, Deep Learning, Big Data Analysis, IOT, 5G Networks and Cloud Computing, Data and Business analytics, Computational Social Science & Social Networks

Track-2 Data Science, Cloud and Big Data Analytics

Chair: Prof. Bijender Kumar – NSUT, New Delhi

Computing Technologies Algorithms Programming Languages Computing Architectures and Systems Computer Graphics, Vision and Animation Software and Database System Multimedia Engineering Networks, IoT and Cyber Security Cluster, Cloud, & Grid Computing Computational Intelligence, Data Mining, Neural Networks and Deep Learning, Meta heuristic algorithms, Machine Learning, Business Intelligence, Human Computer Interface, Crowd Sourcing & Social Intelligence, Data Science & Engineering, Big Data Analytics, High Performance Computing, Computational Biology & Bioinformatics Data Centric, Programming Data, Modeling & Semantic web, Text, Web Mining, & Visualization Domain Specific Data Management, Knowledge Engineering Parallel Computing, Pervasive Computing.

Track-3 Electronics, VLSI Technology & Embedded System

Chair: Prof. Manoj Saxena – Delhi University, New Delhi

Electron Devices & Solid-State Circuits, Circuits and Systems, Consumer Electronics, Micro and Nanoelectronics, Photonics, RF Circuits, Systems and Antennas, Propagation and Computational EM RF/Millimetre-wave Circuits and Systems THz, mm Wave and RF Systems for Communications Materials and Structures Microwave Metrology RF and Microwaves in Medicine and Biology Devices, Circuits, Materials and Processing Electronic devices, materials and fabrication process, Device modelling & characterization, Advanced CMOS devices and process, Beyond CMOS device technology, Emerging memory technologies, Analog and mixed signal ICs, MEMS and semiconductor sensors

Track-4 Power, Energy and Power Electronics

Chair: Prof. Bhim Singh, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi Prof. B. K. Panigrahi, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi

Conventional, Renewable and Green Energy, Energy Storage Devices, Electric Vehicles and their Charging infrastructure, onboard, offboard chargers, Industrial Electronics and application, Smart Grid and Micro Grid, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Modelling & Simulation of Machines, Power Systems, High Voltage and Power Electronics, Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation

Track-5 Communications and Signal Processing

Chair: Prof. Ranjan K. Mallik, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi

Communication, Signal, Image and Video Processing, RF, Microwave, Millimetre wave: Theory and Techniques, Electromagnetics, Antennas and wave Propagation, Ultrasonic, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, Wireless technologies, Broadcasting, Intelligent Transportation System.

Track-6 Intelligent Control and Instrumentation

Chair: Prof Lilie Dewan, NIT Kurukshetra

Intelligent Control Systems – Robust, Fuzzy, Neural Network-based, Applications in inter-disciplinary areas; Instrumentation and Measurements, Sensors and Circuits – Optical, Biological, Robotics and Automation etc.

Track-7 Biomedical Engineering and Healthcare Technologies

Chair(s): Dr. V. R. Singh, IEEE Delhi Section

Biomedical Engineering and Healthcare Technologies Biomedical Signal Processing and Instrumentation, Wearable Sensors for Health care monitoring Biomedical Imaging Micro/Nano-bioengineering and Cellular /Tissue Engineering & Biomaterials Computational Systems, Modeling and Simulation.

Track-8 Special Tracks: WIE, Industry, HTC, Education

Chair(s): Prof. Preeti Bajaj, IEEE Region 10 for WIE Mr. Sanjay Kar Chowdhury, Industry Relations Committee Chair, Region 10 for Industry Prof. Rajendrasinh Jadeja, Marwadi University, Gujarat for HTC Prof. Rajashree Jain, Symbiosis Pune for Education

Product Safety & Reliability Engineering, Social and Humanitarian Implications of Technology, Theoretical Computer Science, Emerging technologies and their applications in education, publications, tourism, healthcare, agriculture etc

Submission Guidelines

Submit Your Paper Here