Virtually all nations proclaim allegiance to global markets. But a more intractable division is taking hold, this time based on technology. A second part, involving perhaps half of the world's population, is able to adopt these technologies in production and consumption. The remaining part, covering around a third of the world's population, is technologically disconnected, neither innovating at home nor adopting foreign technologies. The first relies on universities and public laboratories, the second on private, profit-driven firms.
Successful innovation requires academia, government and industry to work in harness.
The Internet is a familiar case in point. In developing countries, fruitful interaction of this kind is unheard of. In the map drawn by Jeffrey Sachs, the Philippines is in the second part, not providing technology innovations, nor technologically disconnected, but able to adopt the technologies in production and consumption. I spoke of our present reality, where the virtual world of bits is assuming ever wider scope. It is the widening capability to deal with bits, rather than atoms, that has changed and is changing our world.