The basic concept of an electrical power grid has matured from the early stand-alone distribution systems that serviced a limited geographic area to a more expansive and far-reaching regional network that incorporates multiple areas. In practice, the uninterrupted access to sources of electric power became a key ingredient of the economic development advances that were made possible during the Industrial Age.
Tags: economic development, Energy/Utilities, Green Technology, Smart Grid
By Pippa Collett, Cisco UK
“There’s the gun and they’re off!”
Cisco House officially opened its doors yesterday in a five month marathon to inspire leaders seeking new ideas around the business transformation of countries, cities and organisations.
Tags: Building a Brilliant Future, Cisco House, East London Tech City, London Olympics
By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist
When it comes to proving the benefits of broadband deployment, we frequently focus on the macroeconomic issues – the big-picture impact of infrastructure and access to high-speed networking. But the Internet Innovation Alliance and the Small Business Entrepreneurship Council (SBEC) recently looked at broadband from a microeconomic standpoint.
In their report, Start-Up Savings: Boosting Entrepreneurship through Broadband Internet, jointly issued last month, they calculated how much small businesses can save by conducting their administrative activities online. The answer: a substantial $16,550.52.
Tags: broadband, economic development, entrepreneurs, small business, smb, SME
The upcoming Summer Olympics in London isn’t the first time that the UK has been the host nation for the games. There’s an interesting and unique history to the Olympics experience in Great Britain. The first time that London, England was chosen as the host city for the Summer Olympics was way back in 1908.
The second time, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the planned 1944 Olympic Summer Games to London in June of 1939. However, a very significant unscheduled event occurred that changed those preliminary plans — that being World War II — and the 1944 games were cancelled.
Tags: ICT, London Olympics, socioeconomic development, technology infrastructure
By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist
Where is broadband deployment most widespread and thus most successful? Countless surveys, including some that we’ve referred to on the Connected Life Exchange, show Asia as the undisputed leader — especially South Korea.
But INSEAD (formerly known as the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires) tweaked its methodology for tracking network readiness in its Global Information Technology Report (GTIR) between 2011 and this year, the rankings of its Networked Readiness Index (NRI) came out slightly different, and Asia’s presence faded.
Tags: economic development, information technology, INSEAD, Networked Readiness Index
Today, the term Entrepreneur is used freely by a lot people, typically to describe someone who has started their own business or launched multiple new ventures. Since being a part of the Shoreditch tech scene, I’m now starting to understand the unique characteristics of people that can best be described as “entrepreneurial” — and then letting my mind wander back into my own life experiences.
Tags: Consumerization of IT, culture, Digital Britain, Entrepreneur, innovation, Intrapreneur
By Jason Kohn, Contributing Columnist
I’ve been intrigued by the amazing ways that people are using mobile phones in the developing world. From agriculture to banking to education, mobile connectivity is providing all sorts of services that would otherwise be out of reach, and helping to lift thousands of people out of poverty.
But one of the most interesting things about these mobile efforts is how many of them are aiming not just to provide direct services, but to help entrepreneurs help themselves – and thereby build stronger economies.
Tags: economic development, entrepreneurs, innovation, mobile networks, vodafone
The popular trend to “bring your own device” (BYOD) to work is not surprising to those who are informed about the recent past. This phenomenon was preceded by savvy employees that would introduce useful consumer-grade software applications to the enterprise – without the approval of gatekeepers within the corporate IT organization.
The early adoption of online instant messaging, wiki and blog platforms are noteworthy examples of where many corporate IT departments have been slow to embrace online collaboration applications. Moreover, when the approved enterprise-grade vendor has been chosen and the “solution” is deployed, sometimes it’s inferior to the consumer-grade offering.
Tags: byod, Cloud Computing, collaboration, productivity, software as a service
By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist
When most of us were in school, our teachers instructed us to “show our work.” It wasn’t enough that we came to a conclusion; we had to demonstrate how we had arrived at that conclusion.
That’s why this October 2011 report on the socioeconomic effect of fiber to the home (FTTH), sponsored by the Swedish government’s broadband council, Bredbandsforum, is so interesting: the authors, Marco Forzati and Crister Mattsson, show exactly how they arrived at their numbers — achieving a positive payback of 1.5:1 in five years.
Tags: broadband, fiber network, FTTH, ROI, socioeconomic development, Sweden
Recently I was chatting with a couple of people at an event in Shoreditch about what makes a creative industry cluster — such as Silicon Alley and the East London Tech City — flourish and grow. We concluded that there are some key ingredients required to fully develop the community; the presence of Big Tech, legal, accountants, VC’s, and of course start-ups operated by savvy entrepreneurs.
Tags: British Innovation Gateway, business clusters, Digital Britain, entrepreneurs
By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist
One of the plum assignments of my journalism career was co-authoring a report for CIO about IT in Australia. Ten days in Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne (with a weekend jaunt to Tasmania) brought out one key aspect of the Australian attitude toward technology: being isolated from most of the world, they have to be twice as creative.
At that time, in the late 90s, Australia had already deregulated its telecommunications industry (just a year after the U.S.) and developed a state-of-the-art $3 billion national fiber-optic network.
Tags: Australia, broadband, fiber network, ICT, infrastructure, public policy
By Jason Kohn, Contributing Columnist
Last year, I wrote a series of editorials about how mobile data services — mobile agriculture and banking in particular — are becoming major economic drivers in developing economies. While these services can benefit all people in regions under-served by traditional infrastructure, women may benefit in particular.
Tags: economic development, GSMA, infrastructure, mobile applications, mWomen, NGO
By Steven Shepard, Contributing Columnist
By anyone’s estimation, 1891 was an eventful year. It saw the birth of a plethora of people who would go on to change the world: David Sarnoff, who would lead the invention of video. Earl Warren, who would sit on the US Supreme Court as its Chief Justice. Erwin Rommel, who would (albeit reluctantly) lead the Axis powers in North Africa during World War II. Fanny Brice, singing comedienne. Henry Miller, author. And Sergey Prokofiev, composer of extraordinary music.
Tags: inventor, telecommunications network, telephone network, voice communications
Being born and bred in Britain I have obviously adopted the typical British way of thinking – avoid failure at all costs. This mindset is being echoed by start-ups in the UK who are seeking funding from British venture capitalists (VCs) – apparently, they’re risk adverse in their investments, when compared to their U.S. counterparts.
Tags: Digital Britain, Failure, learning, start ups, venture capital
By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist
The place: San Francisco. The time: a Saturday afternoon.
The scenario: after lunch, two out-of-town couples find themselves in a neighborhood where taxi cabs are scarce. One of the women remembers a new iPhone app called Uber that allows you to wirelessly order a Lincoln Towncar and bill the trip to a credit card.
Elapsed time between signing up with Uber and the car arriving: 10 minutes. Estimated incremental cost above a traditional cab: $7.
Tags: apps, global networked economy, jobs, mobile, smartphone, software, tablet
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