We now live on a digital planet. Across the world, our physical interactions are being replaced by digitally-mediated interactions — from social, political, media, and entertainment. This transformation has been swift.
Today two thirds of the world’s population have a mobile phone, and in the past year social media gained 11 new users every second. According to the Harvard Business Review cross-border flows of digitally transmitted data have grown manifold, accounting for more than one-third of the increase in global gross domestic product in 2014.
In some ways, we are only at the beginning of a digital world. The future of work will be fundamentally transformed. Digital technologies enabled by automation, big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are expected to affect 50% of the world economy. More than one billion jobs and $14.6 trillion in wages can be automated with technology available today. Leading economists suggest a guaranteed living income to offset the loss of jobs and potential social inequities that could arise.
More than one billion jobs and $14.6 trillion in wages are considered automatable with technology available today.
While the biggest technology companies may currently be located in the United States, other countries are adopting digital initiatives, transferring manual processes into digital ones, nurturing technology start-ups, and more to drive digital transformations. Here are a few of the countries enacting innovative and aggressive digital transformations:
India has been rated among countries worldwide as “stand out” in regards to its digital economy, according to the Harvard Business Review’s Digital Evolution Index. A stand-out country is one that’s highly advanced digitally and has a high digital momentum.
India’s current digital momentum is predicated on the Digital India campaign, which set to improve digital literacy and enable widespread access to high-speed Internet connectivity across the country. The campaign focuses on three key areas: development of secure and stable digital infrastructure, delivering government services digitally, and universal digital literacy.
“The vision of Digital India is to transform the country into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy,” according to the Digital India website. “It would ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically.”
The Indian government wants to “digitally empower citizens” through universal digital literacy, accessible digital resources in Indian languages, collaborative digital platforms for participative governance, and storage of entitlements in the cloud.
India’s Digital Locker System aims to minimize the use of physical documents and enable sharing of e-documents across agencies.
The idea of digital infrastructure as a utility in India is to ensure digital government services are available to citizens through improved online infrastructure and by increasing internet connectivity across all areas of the country, especially rural areas. The initiative also seeks to create a “cradle to the grave” digital identity for each citizen, which would be unique, lifelong, online, and authenticable. This digital identity would allow access to a “Common Service Center”, shareable private space on a public cloud and a secure “cyber-space”.
The second area of focus is to transform government services, so they are seamlessly delivered across departments and jurisdictions. These services will be available in real-time from online and mobile platforms to all citizens. In the future, the goal is to make all financial transactions electronic.
Brazil, named a near “break-out” country on HBR’s Digital Evolution Index, introduced its first National Digital Strategy last year, called E-Digital. It addresses telecom infrastructure, taxation, personal data protection, and cybersecurity.
According to the report, “E-Digital aims at harmonizing the federal government initiatives related to the digital environment, in order to take advantage of the potential of digital technologies to promote sustainable and inclusive economic and social development, with innovation, increased competitiveness, productivity and employment and income levels in Brazil.”
Brazil was ranked 81 out of 138 nations in the Global Competitiveness Indexfrom the World Economic Forum, and the government is looking to increase that position significantly over the next five years.
As part of the National Digital Strategy, Brazil conducted the Internet of Things: an Action Plan for Brazil, which outlines policies and action plans for the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in the country. The study focused on verticals such as health, smart cities, industry, and the rural environment.
By 2025, IoT could add between $4 to $11 trillion to the global economy and Brazil hopes to bring in IoT-related revenues of $132 billion by 2025. By 2021, the Brazilian Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market is expected to reach revenues of U.S. $3.3 billion.
By 2021, the Brazilian Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market is expected to reach revenues of U.S. $3.3 billion.
Brazil is also looking to make banking easier by providing more digital banking services to its citizens. A law called Resolution 4,480 was passed last year that allows four of the country’s smaller banks to create online and mobile, app-based banking accounts without needing to visit a banking branch. One bank saw its accounts increase from 10,000 to 80,000 in nine months.
Indonesian president Joko Widodo believes Indonesia can become the largest digital economy in Southeast Asia by 2020. The economic priority of the country is shifting from being reliant on natural resources to become a knowledge-based IT economy. With 43 percent of its 250 million citizens under the age of 25, the country hopes its citizens will help to drive this transformation.
In recent years, Indonesia has seen a rapid increase of internet connectivity through mobile devices, an explosion in the use of cloud computing, and a significant increase in use of IoT technology, big data, and advanced analytics.
There are an estimated 3.8 million new internet users each month in Southeast Asia, which would make it the fastest growing internet region in the world between 2015 and 2020, according to a 2016 research report by Google and Singaporean investment fund Tamasek.
“If Indonesia can harness the power of new digital technologies to increase labor productivity and bring more people into active employment, the country could add more than $150 billion to its yearly economic output within a decade, roughly 10 percent of its GDP,” states McKinsey. This productivity improvement will come from operation optimization, human health and human productivity improvement, and product development and sales improvement.
Nearly 80 percent of Indonesian businesses are turning to digital services to drive faster innovation across their organization, while 71 percent believe it will help them stay competitive, according to the independent survey of IT leaders.
Last year, the Indonesia President implemented the ecommerce roadmap that provides guidelines and goals for the country’s digital economy. And in 2014, the government announced a strategy that would enhance internet connectivity across the country.
Indonesia also aims to cultivate 1,000 “technopreneurs” as part of its e-commerce roadmap, which aims to reach an estimated U.S. $130 billion transactions in Indonesia by 2020. Currently, nearly 70 percent of 200 businesses in Indonesia generate revenue mostly from their digital technology stream, higher than the average of 46 percent in Asia Pacific and Japan, according to a global survey titled Evolution.
Estonia, a small country in Northern Europe with a population of about 1.3 million people, was named “the most advanced digital society in the world” by Wired magazine in 2017. While the country gained independence from Russia in 1991, by 1997, 97 percent of Estonian schools were online. In 2000, cabinet meetings went paperless. By 2000, Estonia declared that Internet access was a “basic human right” and in 2002 the government built a free WiFi network that covered most populated areas. By 2007, it had introduced e-voting, and by 2012, the country laid out massive amounts of fiber-optic cabling to enable ultra-high-speed data connections.
“E-Estonia” was called the most “most ambitious project in technological statecraft today” by the New Yorker, since it includes all members of the government, and alters citizens’ daily lives. Most government services have been digitally linked across one platform.
In 2014, Estonia became the first country to offer electronic residency to people from outside the country, as a way move towards the idea of a “country without borders.” Non-residents of Estonia can become “e-residents” and with smart ID have access to Estonia’s electronic services, including the ability to digitally sign documents over the internet.
“With over 27,000 e-Residency applications to date, we’ve seen the initiative’s popularity grow steadily since launch,” said Kaspar Korjus, Program Lead, e-Residency. “e-Residency offers the freedom for every world citizen to easily start and run a global EU company from anywhere in the world, and as of October 2017, our e-Residents own over 4,000 enterprises.”
Estonia’s success with digital transformation has its foundation in trust. After each successful digital project that has improved the lives of citizens, greater trust and openness to each new digital initiative has been established. Another way trust has been established is through digital transparency. Each Estonian citizen (or e-Resident) can log in to their personal government side interface and see who has inquired information — whether it be a police officer, doctor, or tax official.
Digital platforms are the key to this new era, connecting anyone, anywhere, anytime. The countries that succeed in building successful digital infrastructures and digitizing processes will be the ones who thrive and be more relevant in the new world economy.
Chandler Harris 