Carlos S. Baradello, Ph.D.

The world has already has seen technology- driven transformations which have economically benefited few countries whileand passinged over most of the rest of the world.

About a century ago, when the I the industrial Rrevolution was gaining momentum as result of , new emerging technologies targeted to were able to amplifyyied the human labor, resulting in and provided with enormous productivity gains. Multiple mechanical and electro-mechanical machines becaomeme part of the landscape, empowering liberating individuals and organizations from old roles andforms of occupationsslavery while creating new oneforms, under the auspices of economic gain..

As consumers in world markets created demand for cornflakes, new industrializing countries captured the opportunity and corresponding rewards to participate in the industrial value added of the original corn. These countries were able to participate in the $1.40 of industrial value added reward resulting in the transformation of the required 10 cents of corn to produce the $1.50 box of cornflakes.

Many countries like Argentina, which at the time were successful to in attracting labor from Europe and compete competing in the world markets as a supplier of grainraw goods suppliers, was were unable to embrace these new technologies and hence did not benefit from its their timely adoption. In contrast, other countries like Canada as a contrast did did benefit greatly from a timely adoption of new technologies, as Canada today is a memberpart of the G8.

In the meantime, while Argentina has retroceded by many objective indicators and remains a struggling economy. To make things worse, the required 10 cents content of corn became 9 or 8 cents or less over time. As it is the case with any commodity, the only defensible position under competitive pressures is price reduction.

As the world markets created demand for corn flake Argentina missed the opportunity to capture the rewards of the industrial value added content to the corn and remained producing the 10 cents of required corn to produce the $1.50 box of corn flakes, missing the opportunity to obtain the reward in the $1.40 of industrial value added. To make things worst the 10 cents of corn became 9 or 8 cents as with any other commodity offering little defensible position under competition than price reduction.

Walking the conference floorhallways of WSIS last December, and I observed crowded hallways with a wide rangevariety of delegations from all parts of the planets. It was unavoidable not to think in terms of the winners and losers 50 years from now. Which countries which will able to mobilize their societies analogous toto the equivalence than a century ago, when some like Canada made the successful transition from ago Corn corn to cornflakes?

Thise transformation today is asequally difficult as any major transformation of the past, as they introduce major threats to those entrenched sectors which tend to lose from any change of the status quo.

What isare the sequences of policiesy and pragmatic changes, combined with the personality of the actorsies and political figures which successfully will successfully navigate thise change? What are the strikes of wisdom or genius of few enlightened individuals or the strikes of chance or good luck which will favourfavor the selected fewfew countries? While for the rest it will be another missed opportunityMeanwhile, will this be just another missed opportunity for the rest?

Clearly, the formula: Education, Infrastructure and Adoption will be lived in its own indigenous way in the few successful countries. In them the change will be lived as Florentine Rrenaissance. theThe language, the opportunities and the behavior of individuals and organizations will breathe and express opportunity, creating an exciting virtuous circle of economic development and growth. eE- government will yield more efficient and transparent government, ; e-learning will provide a more educated and skilled society, ; e-commerce and e-trade will promote their products in the world markets, ; e-logistics will provide more competitive distribution networks, ; e-health will make preventive health reala tangible reality. Each piece component will leverage from the prior priorstrengthen the others components because they are all synergistic and interconnected and the gain of one is magnified by the others and amplify the gains to the benefit of their citizens. and t However, their collective secret will not be the ICTs, which are large are highlybe on how these at large standardized building blocks, but rather inwere able to work in some the unique way they are able to resonate with the environment, the culture, the aspirations and the signs of the time of that society.

A word of intuitive hope is for small countries (i.e. El Salvador, Uruguay, etc.).It seems they should be able find their niche in the Information Society. it is vital for them to identify opportunities to add bits of data, information, intelligence or knowledge to some "atoms of corn" (in the world of physical objects) or "atomless corn" (in the service world); and derive some unique economic rewards for the benefit of their development. For these countries their participation in the Information Society will depends on their creativity and imagination rather than size, since to their benefit, size "almost" does not matter.

Meanwhile, the disastrous "what went wrong" and "missed opportunity" stories will continue to constitute a vast resource for academic analysis, as Argentina and many other emerging countries have offered abundant data for case studies. For them, these countries will have no choice but to wait for the next wave of transformation.has. For the rest will constitute a vast resource for academic analysis of what went wrong as Argentina has provided to academicians and technicians of multilateral organizations as endless number of research and opinion papers have been published.

While most of us succumb to the temptation of making and all out effort to find the "secret sauce" to trigger these virtuous cycles of transformation, adoption and development which can be coded and standardized for ease replicability, I would contend that the first principles are more elusive. Recall that and in consequences there was only one Florence during the Renaissance and one Silicon Valley during the Digital Renaissance of our times, and its replicabiility has beenis much harder than anticipated.

A word of intuitive hope is for small countries (i.e. El Salvador, Uruguay, etc.). it seem they should be able find their niche in the Information Society and identify the opportunities to add bits, data, information, intelligence or knowledge to some "atoms of corn" (in the physical objects world) or "atomless corn" (in the service world) where some unique economic rewards could be obtained for the benefit of their development. For them ICT is a great leverage as the leverage provided is such that size "almost" does not matter.

As the aftershocks of WSIS Geneva 200'03 are felt, and the preparations for Tunis 20'05 get under way, most countries will continue to ponderabout the benefits of ICTs. Presidents and ministers, politicians and businessmen, educators and parents decide to provide lip service or make some of the difficult choices in thedecisions of allocation ofng limited resources to a new contender: ICTs. While some of this resource allocation is important, the "secret sauce" will not be found in standardized ICTs building blocks. Rather the answer will be found in the society's character and valuess of the societiesy, in itstheirits ability to seize the moment, read the sign of the times and polarize itsthe collective aspirations of society into a set of executable steps leading to opportunities to harvest the rewards from the participation in the Information Society.

Carlos S. Baradello, Ph.D.
Carlos S. Baradello, Ph.D. teaches at the School of Business and Management of the University of San Francisco and Managing Director & CTO of Iter Domus Inc., serving as executive advisor to global corporations and governmental and non-governmental foreign development agencies.