internet

Fears that digital technology will cost jobs and lead to large-scale unemployment are nothing new. In last week’s blog, I pointed out such fears as long ago as 1971. But they’ve become more prevalent of late. This week, I’ll comment on a new view of long-term employment and unemployment in the digital age, from Oxford economist Daniel Susskind. A World Without Work, he calls it. I’ll ag...

USAID – the US government’s development agency – tweeted recently that we were ‘entering the second decade of digital development.’ Not so, we’re much further down the road then that. When I was thinking, some years ago, of writing a book about the early years of ICT4D – or ‘digital development’ – a key figure from those early days directed me way back, towards United Nation...

Last week I wrote about some of the big picture issues affecting jobs – employment – in the digital society. How many jobs are likely to be created, and how many destroyed, by automation? How different will the jobs experience be in different countries? The gig economy It’s very hard to predict the answers to these questions. This week I’ll take the focus down to one job sector tha...

Words change their meaning over time – but the words we use have lasting impacts on the ways in which we see things. This week I’m asking what we mean when we talk about the “telephone” (or “phone”). Some history (general and personal). And some questions about how that affects our current thinking. A brief history of the telephone Invented in the 1870s, but a luxury ...

It’s fifteen years since the World Summit on the Information Society – and the United Nations is pledged to hold a review of what has happened since the Summit in 2025. But are the outcomes of the Summit still relevant today, after fifteen years of breakneck change in technology and services? How should the UN go about reviewing it? This week’s blog is the speech I made last week to ...

This year's Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will take place from 25 to 29 November in Berlin, Germany. The overall theme of the event is "One World. One Net. One Vision." We are heading to Berlin to capture the activities and highlights of #IGF2019, and we hope to see you there. You can start by checking Social Media at the 14th IGF. For specific APC activity coverage, here are some guidelines ...

I have always been of the opinion that POLICY IS BORING, I say this every time I have the opportunity to be at gatherings where policy discussions, especially tech/internet  policies are held and I also ask myself all of these times, what can I do to make these conversations more interesting to the people who the outcomes of these conversations will benefit the most? Getting accepted ...

This blog post was originally published on the website of the African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG). I was really excited about my selection to participate in the 7th edition of the African School of Internet Governance which took place in the city of N’Djamena, Chad. The school hosted a diverse group of people from the African continent and outside the continent. The...