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