Technology shall inherit the world

The tech industry had a few action-packed days last week. Apart from Apple’s much-hyped tablet launch the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos took place. This was the first indicator of the year that IT will act as a key instrument to strengthen economic and social welfare as the world starts to climb out of the recession.

Pundits, academics, businessmen and technology leaders at forward-looking companies (as well those playing catch-up) have blogged and tweeted throughout the conference saying that innovative ideas are needed to prevent yet another economic crisis.

The overall mood at the conference was ‘cautiously optimistic’ and the tech sessions at WEF united a host of big names including the founders of the main social media networks, as well as several industry heavy-hitters, all ready to seize the opportunity in the crisis and to set an agenda for change.

‘Rethink, redesign, rebuild’ was the theme of this year’s conference, which highlighted prospects such as the power of social networking tools to not just improve business offerings and their relationship with customers, but to create value from a socioeconomic standpoint – the multimillion-dollar Facebook fundraising to help Haiti is just one example of this.

While much of the conference discussed the speed and scale of recovery and the role technology will play in this, it also covered future challenges that only the best-prepared organisations will be able to tackle. These include privacy, enabling the effective use of IT to promote collaboration and more productivity, as well as managing rapid cycles of technological change through open models of innovation, without crippling the business with short-term cost cutting strategies.

Some would argue that decisions are hardly ever made as a result of WEF discussion and that the debates “preached to the converted”. Nevertheless, as we enter a new decade, the summit underscored the power of fast-changing technologies, their increasing ubiquity and the fact that businesses will be forced to adjust to the good and bad facets of these dynamics – it is no longer a matter of choice.

Hopefully, if nothing else, Davos will have influenced the way in which business leaders approach technology and prompted them to up their game and deal with their very modern problems before it’s too late.

Angelica Mari is Chief Reporter of Computing Magazine