EMEA 2005 (16)

Theme: Positioning for change

Connect-World EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) explores how technology ties and binds growing relations between the developing and the developed regions of the world. The theme of this issue is EMEA and ICT — positioning for change.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is shaping the way the world is developing. This is nothing new, of course. Historically, every major new technology has shaped, re-shaped and divided the world between those that control and use the technology and those that do not.

The digital divide could have been just one more example of this, but the rapid drop in the technology’s cost, the rapid return on investment, as well as the concerted efforts of governments, institutions and international organisations, turn ICT into the cure for its own ills.

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The EMEA region encompasses a broad range, not just of geographies, but also of societies and needs. The new technologies bring opportunity to all, but the sort of change they will bring to the Middle East and Africa is several orders of magnitude more earth shaking than the change they will bring to Europe. Whereas in most of Europe ICT will bring important, but incremental change, in much of Africa and the Middle East the changes will be nothingless than revolutionary.

Regions long cut-off from the benefits of the latest technologies, from any substantial commerce with the more developed parts of the world, and with little cultural interchange, will now, for better and worse, comeface-to-face with all the changes these developments bring.Governments, international agencies, regional industries, service providers, businesses large and small, and local communities all now need to position themselves to absorb the benefits and minimise the social and business risks.

Connect-World EMEA focuses upon what this technology invasion means to people, communities, businesses, service providers and equipment suppliers in Europe the Middle East and Africa. It points to the need of governments and companies to plan for the change.

Similarly, in Connect-World’s Africa and the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, North America and Latin America issues, each region’s leaders look at the issues that drive the development of their home regions or countries.

Current discussions centre upon the changes wrought in industry and society by the latest generation of information and communications technology - especially Internet protocol digital communications, and how both business and society are changing, need to change, as a result.