Friday, February 09, 2007
The OECD/NSF looks at internet evolution
Last week, the OECD and National Science Foundation had a one-day workshop in Washington examining "Social and Economic Factors Shaping the Future of the Internet."One of the papers, designed to help participants determine a set of priorities, spoke of the internet changing from the inside out and from the outside in:
From the inside, Internet technologies are transitioning from an era of deployment and performance to an era of qualitative evolution where a diverse range of environments enables communication in a variety of forms and situations. ...I only had a little time to flip through some of the background material while preparing for my lectures at U of T this weekend. There was an interesting paper by Mark Handley entitled Why the Internet only just works expressing concerns that the network is on the threshold of collapse.
From the outside in, the Internet is now a critical infrastructure underpinning global economic and social activity in a globalising world. Accelerating technological development in relation to the Internet has tremendous technological, political, social, and cultural ramifications that are difficult or in many cases, impossible to comprehend. ... the Internet needs to meet social needs placed upon it, expand opportunities for innovation and economic growth, be robust and secure, and scale to evolving requirements.
There were a number of Canadian participants in last week's meeting. I'd welcome their reports on the workshops. Any private sector viewpoints as well?
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OECD, internet
Posted by Mark Goldberg @ 2/09/2007 06:41:00 AM 
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