The New Digital Economy and Development

Leadership and Learning Are Indispensable To Each Other

-- J.F. Kennedy

 - The Foundations of The New Digital Economy

[UNCTAD]: This technical note frames the ‘New’ Digital Economy (NDE) as including, most prominently: 1) advanced manufacturing, robotics and factory automation, 2) new sources of data from mobile and ubiquitous Internet connectivity, 3) cloud computing, 4) big data analytics, and 5) artificial intelligence (AI). 

The digital economy is built on several foundations, including:

• Digital infrastructure: Affordable, high-speed internet is essential for connecting more people online.
• Digital platforms: These platforms support digital transactions, exchanges, and access to public and private services.
• Digital financial services: These services allow people to pay, save, borrow, and invest digitally, which can help with financial inclusion by removing geographic and market barriers.
• Digital business: This ecosystem helps new and established businesses grow, which can drive innovation and employment.

As the world around us continues to rapidly change, most institutions and individuals recognize that we are living and working in an increasingly digital economy. However, there remain several questions about the underlying technologies that act as a foundation of our future digital economy, including on-chain technologies and how it can transform the way we conduct transactions, manage data, and help build scalability and trust at a cost that is a fraction compared to traditional technologies. 

Just as the internet, mobile, cloud computing, and AI have reshaped our world, on-chain technologies are set to be the foundational technology that could define the future of the digital economy.

- Data vs. Information

Data is raw, unprocessed facts that need context to become useful, while information is data that has been processed, organized, and interpreted to add meaning and value. Data can be numbers, symbols, characters, words, codes, graphs, and more. Information can be any communication or representation of knowledge, such as facts, data, or opinions, in any medium or form. 

Here are some examples of data and information:

• Medical diagnosis: A physician's diagnosis is information that comes from analyzing data such as symptoms, medical history, and test results.
• Measuring string: Each measurement of a piece of string is a data point, but all the data points together provide information. For example, if many pieces of string are not the desired length, the information could indicate an issue with the process.
• Social media: Likes on a social media post are a data point, but when combined with other data like shares, comments, and followers, they can become information. Marketers can use this information to understand which platforms are working best and what types of posts their audience likes.
• Music: Album sales and streaming data are data, but information includes the album's chart ranking and overall success

- The Main Driver of The New Digital Economy

The main driver of the NDE is the continued exponential improvement in the cost-performance of information and communications technology (ICT), mainly microelectronics, following Moore’s Law. 

This is not new. The digitization of design, advanced manufacturing, robotics, communications, and distributed computer networking (e.g. the Internet) have been altering innovation processes, the content of tasks, and the possibilities for the relocation of work for decades. 

However, three features of the NDE are relatively novel: 

• First, new sources of data, from smart phones to factory sensors, are sending vast quantities of data into the “cloud,” where they can be analysed to generate new insights, products, and services. 
• Second, new business models based on technology and product platforms — platform innovation, platform ownership, and platform complimenting — are significantly altering the organization of industries and the terms of competition in a range of leading-edge industries and product categories. 
• Third, the performance of ICT hardware and software has advanced to the point where artificial intelligence and machine learning applications are proliferating. What these novel features share is reliance on very advanced and nearly ubiquitous ICT, embedded in a growing platform ecosystem characterized by high levels of interoperability and modularity. 

The NDE appears poised to extend the organizational and geographical fragmentation of work into new realms, including formerly indivisible and geographically rooted activities that reside at the front end of global value chains, especially R&D, product design, and other knowledge-intensive and innovation-related business functions. 

The impact on jobs and international competition will crucially depend on the pace of change and the ability of organizations and societies to manage it.....

- Shaping the Future of The New Digital Economy and Value Creation

The economy is digitizing at a rapid pace, giving businesses the opportunity to operate more efficiently at lower costs. 

The unprecedented disruption by COVID-19 is accelerating the urgency for agility, adaptability and transformation. Industry structures and business models are being disrupted – and the digitalization of the economy is being rapidly accelerated.

Just as the Internet, mobile, cloud computing and AI have reshaped our world, on-chain technology will also become the basic technology that defines the future of the digital economy.

On-chain technology represents a paradigm shift in how we build ecosystems at an unprecedented scale, enabling a more efficient, inclusive, and transparent digital economy. By providing an on-chain trading platform, processing time can be reduced, costs reduced, and scalability and security improved.

[More to come ...]