Technology Innovation for 2012 – High Speed Internet for All

One of the more striking discussions from the event, was the presentation on the future of information technology in India by Sam Pitroda, whose efforts to bring India into the modern age of high speed Internet for the masses in some ways mirrors what Rahm Emanuel has been touting for Chicago where about a third of the population do not have an Internet connection in their residence. So how does having high speed Internet access for even out the playing field for all? In listening to our esteemed colleague from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Sam Pitroda, a self made millionaire who sold his technology company to enjoy a leisurely life found himself now a top advisor to the Indian Prime Minister, and leader for developing the most effective, and ubiquitous way to educate 1.2 billion people. One finds Sam a dreamer or better yet, a visionary of sorts, who believes that if you build it they will come. Over the last 10 years he has worked with the best and brightest to build the information superhighway, byte by byte, as miles of fiber optic cable and repeaters and routers have enable a country to have 40 Gigabytes throughput to serve as the backbone for what the best the world has to offer in knowledge, learning and know-how can be streamed to millions. He said they can learn physics from the likes of Steven Hawkins via the video, or virtual classrooms and not bear the traditional institutional costs associated with staff. With the infrastructure, it will still boil down to will the people know and want to use it. He painfully acknowledges the education they so much need is what is lacking for them to take advantage of the powerful broadband infrastructure.

And that has been the challenge, as I know from my own experience, in building the best software application to make life easier for people, and in our case it often does, many are still reluctant to adapt, and it comes down to training, and driving the willingness to change for the better whether they know it or not. That begs the question to the recent campaign lamentations from the very halls of government here in Chicago, that we as a world class community need to do a better job of providing the broadband for those on the growing class divide – namely those that are probably in the 47% that Mr. Romney’s speaks of – whether they will have the wherewithal, the will and the need to have full blown Internet access. In many cases it is more than just having the hardware, and the connectivity, as it will come down to whether they have developed the need, the want to benefit from the power of the Internet – and that is really a question of education. Much like what the Carnegies did in those early years of the 20^th century, namely building libraries across the nation, I can see that once it the broad band capability has been built, made available, the people will come and they will use it, and we can become a truly egalitarian society here in Chicagoland. So what is good for Chicago, in my view, is and will be a good model for India.