Gauravonomics Blog

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I was recently asked to outline the three most important trends in communications technology. Here are my top three –

- The use of digital tools to make real world changes.

Social media and mobile tools are increasingly being used transform media, education, business, development and government. Increasingly, the focus will shift to ‘real meets virtual’ applications like curated international news (GlobalVoicesOnline.org), mobile citizen journalism (Ushahidi.com), crowd-funded journalism (Spot.us), micro-philanthropy (Kiva.org), collaborative product development (DellIdeastorm.com), crowd-sourced campaigning (MyBarackObama.com) and participatory governance (Change.gov). Also, the power of such applications will increase with the ubiquitous, immediate, personal, location-aware and always on nature of mobile access.

- The shift from explicit to implicit community contribution.

So far, most web 2.0 observers have focused on crowd-sourcing, or explicit community contribution (DellIdeastorm.com, MyBarackObama.com). However, the real value of web 2.0 lies under the hood, in systems designed to improve based on implicit community contributions (Google’s pagerank algorithm, Amazon’s recommendation system). Even though it’s more difficult to design a business around implicit community contributions, we’ll see the web 2.0 community trying harder to understand such business models.

- The entire web as a social network.

(Cross-posted on my fellowship blog - How International Values Shape Communications Technologies)

Slide 1: The ideas in this presentation will form the core of my first fellowship paper. So, if you understand micro-finance, or ICT4D, better than I do, do share your feedback with me. I’ll be grateful.

Slide 2: I see the development process as an hourglass. At the top of the ‘development hourglass’ are the more privileged societies and the challenge here is to build engagement in the development process. At the bottom of the ‘development hourglass’ are the less privileged societies and the challenge here is to enable access to the development process. The challenge in the middle of the ‘development hourglass’ is to connect the top with the bottom via an institutional infrastructure and enable flow, a role that has been traditionally performed by development aid agencies.

Slide 3: Technology can be a vital enabler in the technology hourglass. Web 2.0 and mobile 2.0 tools can help create engagement in the more privileged societies. Community telecenters and mobile phones can help enable access in the less privileged societies. Enterprise ICT and enterprise 2.0 solutions can help the institutions in the middle connect the top to the bottom in a more effective and efficient manner.