Bajan Sun Magazine - Caribbean Entrepreneurs Vol1 Issue 8 | Page 78

BAJAN SUN MAGAZINE TECHNOLOGY Governments, too, need to adapt. While they have traditionally focused on protecting citizens from malicious digital attacks, Lesser argued there are also tremendous opportunities for governments to empower their citizens. He mentioned one example in Saudi Arabia, where the government utilized the internet to launch an unemployment programme for its citizens in only nine months. Normally, he said, this would take three to four years. He urged governments to follow Saudi Arabia’s lead and “get away from the western model of paper shuffling”. Changing education to adapt to the digital revolution is also important. Lesser said we have lived in a world for decades where an employee’s knowledge was the source of his or her value in the workplace, but that knowledge is becoming less and less important. “Now, everybody has data,” he said. “Now it’s how can you create insight? These are foundational skills, but our educational systems aren’t geared that way.” He argues for advanced problem solving in the classroom, as well as more work in teams. The rise in digitized data is also prompting concerns over data security among CEOs and individuals. Mitchell Baker, the Executive Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation, said we are all aware of best practices to keep ourselves safe in the physical world, but we are still finding our way in the digital one. She said the process of learning about personal digital security is under way now. Companies, however, need to guard themselves against substantial hacking or cyber attacks. Lesser said the consumer attitude toward data collection and usage is still evolving, noting consumers tend to react negatively to questions about data collection but positively towards better and more customized services. OCT 2014