I admit it; there are times when I have been shortsighted. While I try to keep an open mind about the upside potential of networking applications for socioeconomic advancement, I’ve had my share of moments where I’ve missed the obvious — by not seeing the full spectrum of opportunities for advancement.

Case in point: when I started to publish my research, thoughts and observations online I was myopically thinking that my market reach would most likely be limited to people within North America.

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Tags: global networked economy, IoE, mobile internet, MWC13, socioeconomic development

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.

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Tags: ICT, London Olympics, socioeconomic development, technology infrastructure

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.

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Tags: broadband, fiber network, FTTH, ROI, socioeconomic development, Sweden

Our web documentary series, The Network Effect, examines the pioneering spirit of the inventors and service providers who built the telecom network, and how the network is transforming economies especially in developing countries. It is that same innovative and creative spirit that is now building cloud computing.

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Tags: Cisco CloudVerse, rural broadband, socioeconomic development, telemedicine