Future of Technology Leadership
Thursday, November 16, 2006 Permanent link to this post
I am a teaching assistant for BIT 582 - Enterprise Systems Strategy course at Ross. During last class the class discussion went towards a remarkable analysis - which countries has more people looking for information about cutting edge technology . After all, tomorrow's technology leadership will be decided by how many people in which country are knowledgeable about advanced technologies. So here are some startling information from Google Trends, which tracks origins of search requests for popular search terms.
So, to start, lets pick a popular and generic advanced technology: Nanotechnology. There is no doubt that Nanotechnology will be exceedingly important in future. So - which cities have most people looking for information in Nanotechnology? Google trends provides the answer:
Chart 1: Searching for Nanotechnology: Top Cities (from Google Trends)
Whoa! Look there - of the top ten cities, none are in developed countries, six are in India and all ten are in Asia! May be top cities is not capturing the full information - lets look at the same data by Countries, rather than Cities.
Chart 2: Searching for Nanotechnology: Top Countries (from Google Trends)
This is definitive now - Developing countries are the one most important in finding out more about cutting edge technologies. US comes 8th in the list - quite troublesome, considering that its current "adversary" Iran is at the 2nd spot. BTW - this is not happening just because developing countries have more people than the developed world. While overall population is surely bigger, the number of people with Internet access is developing world is smaller than that in developed world.
Just for fun, lets take something from manufacturing, say "Lean Manufacturing" - very effective and well known concept. Which countries are looking for information on Lean Manufacturing? Lets also look at something more specific, say "Service Oriented Architecture". Google Trends provides the the following information:
Chart 3: Searching for Lean Manufacturing: Top Countries (from Google Trends)
Chart 4: Searching for Service Oriented Architecture: Top Countries (from Google Trends)
The trend is consistent - Developing countries are more inquisitive about technology then developed countries. India seems to be right on top on every technology search. Is this a cause of concern for developed countries? I think so. These kind of things are the leading indicators, the weak signals that portends a structural shift in balance of technology leadership. A few more years of this and we will have a developing world well versed in technology and a developed world ignorant of the same. What makes it even more striking is the fact that *all* advanced education and technology facilities are in developed countries and even then we have this disparity. As developing world improves their education systems and builds technology facilities, this gap will only increase and the trend will get even more momentum.
Some caveats are in order too: Google is mostly used by the English speaking world - that's why China is conspicuously absent from all the charts above. I am quite sure it will be neck-to-neck with India (or even above) if all search engines are taken together.
My take on this: the four billion poor people of the world have finally information at their disposal (Thank You Internet!) and they are voraciously consuming all this information. The knowledge barrier that kept them down has vanished - and they will be down no longer. We are looking at the emergence of a global knowledge base - that will further feed globalization, and the developed countries are looking at strong (and knowledgeable) competition for tomorrow's technology leadership.
So, to start, lets pick a popular and generic advanced technology: Nanotechnology. There is no doubt that Nanotechnology will be exceedingly important in future. So - which cities have most people looking for information in Nanotechnology? Google trends provides the answer:
Chart 1: Searching for Nanotechnology: Top Cities (from Google Trends)Whoa! Look there - of the top ten cities, none are in developed countries, six are in India and all ten are in Asia! May be top cities is not capturing the full information - lets look at the same data by Countries, rather than Cities.
Chart 2: Searching for Nanotechnology: Top Countries (from Google Trends)This is definitive now - Developing countries are the one most important in finding out more about cutting edge technologies. US comes 8th in the list - quite troublesome, considering that its current "adversary" Iran is at the 2nd spot. BTW - this is not happening just because developing countries have more people than the developed world. While overall population is surely bigger, the number of people with Internet access is developing world is smaller than that in developed world.
Just for fun, lets take something from manufacturing, say "Lean Manufacturing" - very effective and well known concept. Which countries are looking for information on Lean Manufacturing? Lets also look at something more specific, say "Service Oriented Architecture". Google Trends provides the the following information:
Chart 3: Searching for Lean Manufacturing: Top Countries (from Google Trends)Chart 4: Searching for Service Oriented Architecture: Top Countries (from Google Trends)The trend is consistent - Developing countries are more inquisitive about technology then developed countries. India seems to be right on top on every technology search. Is this a cause of concern for developed countries? I think so. These kind of things are the leading indicators, the weak signals that portends a structural shift in balance of technology leadership. A few more years of this and we will have a developing world well versed in technology and a developed world ignorant of the same. What makes it even more striking is the fact that *all* advanced education and technology facilities are in developed countries and even then we have this disparity. As developing world improves their education systems and builds technology facilities, this gap will only increase and the trend will get even more momentum.
Some caveats are in order too: Google is mostly used by the English speaking world - that's why China is conspicuously absent from all the charts above. I am quite sure it will be neck-to-neck with India (or even above) if all search engines are taken together.
My take on this: the four billion poor people of the world have finally information at their disposal (Thank You Internet!) and they are voraciously consuming all this information. The knowledge barrier that kept them down has vanished - and they will be down no longer. We are looking at the emergence of a global knowledge base - that will further feed globalization, and the developed countries are looking at strong (and knowledgeable) competition for tomorrow's technology leadership.
Labels: Development, India, Technology, US
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