Unlocking Potential: The Role of Infrastructure Providers in Growth
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Innovating Services to Meet Evolving Needs
In today's fast-paced world, innovating services to meet evolving needs has become a crucial aspect of growth, especially for infrastructure providers. IT services in sydney . It's not just about building roads or bridges anymore; it's about understanding what communities really need and adapting accordingly. You see, as technology advances and societal expectations shift, infrastructure must keep up or risk becoming obsolete.
Take, for instance, the rise of smart cities. It's not like we can ignore the fact that people want more efficient public services, right? Infrastructure providers are now challenged to integrate digital solutions into their projects. This means using data analytics, IoT devices, and even AI to enhance functionality and efficiency. It's quite fascinating how these advancements can totally transform how we perceive infrastructure!
Moreover, the needs of society are not static. They change with trends and demands, and infrastructure must reflect that. If we don't adapt, communities might feel neglected, and that could lead to a breakdown in trust. We wouldn't want that, would we? By innovating services, providers can ensure they're not just meeting current needs but also anticipating future ones. It's like having a crystal ball (but way cooler and more practical)!
One significant area where infrastructure can evolve is sustainability. People are becoming more conscious of their environmental impact, and infrastructure must respond. Providers have started to implement greener solutions, such as renewable energy sources and eco-friendly materials. This isn't just about compliance; it's about being a responsible player in the growth narrative. After all, who doesn't want to live in a cleaner, healthier environment?
In conclusion, the role of infrastructure providers in growth is undeniably pivotal. By innovating services to meet evolving needs, they can unlock potential that benefits everyone. It's a win-win situation! So, let's embrace change and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible. The future is bright, and we've got to make sure our infrastructure shines along with it!
Collaboration with Technology Companies and Startups
Collaboration with technology companies and startups is a game changer when it comes to unlocking potential, especially for infrastructure providers looking to drive growth! But why exactly is this partnership so crucial? Well, for one, infrastructure providers often have the capital and the scale that startups lack.
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Meanwhile, startups bring innovation and fresh ideas that can revolutionize the industry. Its like having the perfect storm of resources and creativity.
Take, for example, the advancements in renewable energy. An infrastructure provider might have the networks in place to distribute green power, but they might not have the technology to store it efficiently. This is where a startup comes in – they could develop a new kind of battery technology that solves this problem. Its a win-win situation, really.
Now, you might think that these collaborations are a hassle, with different teams and goals pulling in different directions. But the truth is, the benefits can far outweigh any initial challenges. For instance, by working with startups, infrastructure providers can stay ahead of the curve when it comes to technology trends. They dont have to reinvent the wheel – they can invest in promising technologies that are already showing potential.
But theres a catch – not all collaborations are successful. Sometimes, the differences between the two parties can be too big to overcome. Thats why its crucial to choose the right partners and to communicate openly from the start. Its not about negating each others strengths, but about finding ways to combine them for mutual benefit.
In the end, collaboration with technology companies and startups is a vital strategy for infrastructure providers who want to unlock their full potential and foster growth. Its about embracing change, investing in innovation, and being open to new ideas.
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Who knows? The next big breakthrough could be right around the corner!
Addressing Barriers to Access: Affordability and Availability
Oh, boy, lets talk about this "Addressing Barriers to Access: Affordability and Availability" thingy when were thinkin bout infrastructure guys helpin growth! It aint no secret that gettin things like broadband and water (and, heck, even roads!) to everyone is a real challenge.
The big problems?
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Money, plain and simple. Affordability is crucial, ya know? If folks cant actually pay for the service, it doesnt matter how good it is. And its not just about monthly bills; connection fees, equipment costs... it all adds up! Infrastructure providers cannot ignore this. Theyve got to consider programs, subsidies, and tiered pricing to make sure everyone has a fair shot.
Then theres availability. This is about where the service is. It isnt enough to just blanket big cities. What about rural areas or low-income neighborhoods? Often, these places are overlooked because theyre seen as less profitable. But, hey, infrastructure providers have a social responsibility here, dont they? They cant just chase the easy money. Creative solutions, like public-private partnerships (where government shares the burden), are totally necessary.
Its a tough nut to crack, Ill admit. But if were serious about unlocking potential, weve gotta tackle these barriers head-on. Its about more than just profits; its about creating a level playing field for everyone! So, yeah, lets do this!
Sustainable Practices for Long-term Economic Development
Sustainable practices for long-term economic development are crucial, especially when it comes to unlocking potential in growth. Infrastructure providers play a pivotal role here, yet they often face the challenge of balancing immediate needs with future sustainability. Its not just about laying down roads and bridges; its about ensuring these developments benefit society at large without compromising the environment or future generations.
Imagine a scenario where a city invests in green public transportation systems! This doesnt just reduce carbon emissions; it also boosts public health and opens up economic opportunities for those who might not otherwise have access to reliable transport. But what if these systems arent maintained properly? The benefits are lost, and the city risks falling back into old, unsustainable patterns.
On the other hand, not investing in sustainable infrastructure can have severe consequences. Think about regions that neglect water conservation efforts. They might end up facing water shortages, affecting agriculture, industry, and everyday life. Its a vicious cycle thats hard to break once it starts.
So, how do infrastructure providers navigate this complex landscape? They need to innovate and think outside the box. For example, incorporating renewable energy sources into building designs or using recycled materials in construction can significantly lower the environmental impact. But even with these efforts, theres always a chance that something could go wrong. Projects might run over budget, or technology might not work as intended. The key is to be flexible and learn from mistakes.
Moreover, involving the community in decision-making processes is essential. People have unique insights into their own needs and priorities, which can shape sustainable infrastructure projects in a way that maximizes their benefits. Neglecting local perspectives is a surefire way to ensure that projects fail to deliver on their promises.
In conclusion, sustainable practices for long-term economic development are not about perfection but about progress. Its about making informed choices that balance immediate benefits with long-term sustainability. Infrastructure providers are at the forefront of this journey, and their role in unlocking potential for growth is invaluable.
The background of the Web originated in the efforts of scientists and engineers to build and adjoin computer networks. The Internet Procedure Collection, the collection of guidelines utilized to interact between networks and devices on the web, arose from r & d in the United States and involved international collaboration, particularly with researchers in the UK and France. Computer science was an emerging discipline in the late 1950s that started to consider time-sharing between computer system customers, and later, the opportunity of attaining this over large area networks. J. C. R. Licklider established the concept of a global network at the Data processing Techniques Workplace (IPTO) of the United States Division of Defense (DoD) Advanced Research Projects Company (ARPA). Separately, Paul Baran at the RAND Firm recommended a distributed network based on data in message blocks in the very early 1960s, and Donald Davies envisaged package changing in 1965 at the National Physical Research Laboratory (NPL), proposing a national business data network in the United Kingdom. ARPA granted contracts in 1969 for the development of the ARPANET task, routed by Robert Taylor and handled by Lawrence Roberts. ARPANET adopted the packet changing modern technology recommended by Davies and Baran. The network of Interface Message Processors (IMPs) was built by a group at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, with the layout and requirements led by Bob Kahn. The host-to-host procedure was specified by a group of graduate students at UCLA, led by Steve Crocker, along with Jon Postel and others. The ARPANET broadened quickly across the USA with connections to the United Kingdom and Norway. A number of very early packet-switched networks emerged in the 1970s which investigated and supplied data networking. Louis Pouzin and Hubert Zimmermann pioneered a simplified end-to-end approach to internetworking at the IRIA. Peter Kirstein put internetworking right into method at College University London in 1973. Bob Metcalfe created the concept behind Ethernet and the PARC Universal Packet. ARPA campaigns and the International Network Working Group established and refined ideas for internetworking, in which several separate networks might be signed up with right into a network of networks. Vint Cerf, currently at Stanford College, and Bob Kahn, now at DARPA, released their research study on internetworking in 1974. With the Web Experiment Note series and later RFCs this evolved right into the Transmission Control Method (TCP) and Web Protocol (IP), 2 methods of the Net procedure collection. The design included principles originated in the French CYCLADES project guided by Louis Pouzin. The advancement of packet changing networks was underpinned by mathematical work in the 1970s by Leonard Kleinrock at UCLA. In the late 1970s, national and worldwide public data networks arised based on the X. 25 method, created by Rémi Després and others. In the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded nationwide supercomputing centers at several universities in the United States, and supplied interconnectivity in 1986 with the NSFNET task, thus creating network accessibility to these supercomputer sites for study and academic organizations in the United States.International connections to NSFNET, the development of architecture such as the Domain Name System, and the fostering of TCP/IP on existing networks in the USA and around the globe noted the starts of the Net. Industrial Access provider (ISPs) emerged in 1989 in the United States and Australia. Limited private links to components of the Web by formally commercial entities emerged in numerous American cities by late 1989 and 1990. The optical backbone of the NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995, eliminating the last restrictions on making use of the Internet to bring commercial web traffic, as website traffic transitioned to optical networks taken care of by Sprint, MCI and AT&T in the USA. Research at CERN in Switzerland by the British computer researcher Tim Berners-Lee in 1989–-- 90 resulted in the Web, connecting hypertext records into an information system, obtainable from any node on the network. The remarkable expansion of the capacity of the Net, enabled by the advent of wave department multiplexing (WDM) and the rollout of fiber optic cords in the mid-1990s, had an advanced effect on culture, business, and innovation. This made possible the surge of near-instant interaction by electronic mail, instant messaging, voice over Net Method (VoIP) telephone calls, video conversation, and the Internet with its discussion online forums, blog sites, social networking services, and on the internet shopping sites. Enhancing amounts of information are transferred at greater and greater rates over fiber-optic networks operating at 1 Gbit/s, 10 Gbit/s, and 800 Gbit/s by 2019. The Internet's takeover of the worldwide communication landscape was rapid in historic terms: it only communicated 1% of the info streaming via two-way telecoms networks in the year 1993, 51% by 2000, and greater than 97% of the telecommunicated details by 2007. The Web remains to grow, driven by ever before higher amounts of online information, commerce, amusement, and social networking services. Nevertheless, the future of the global network might be shaped by regional differences.
ICT is also used to refer to the convergence of audiovisuals and telephone networks with computer networks through a single cabling or link system. There are large economic incentives to merge the telephone networks with the computer network system using a single unified system of cabling, signal distribution, and management. ICT is an umbrella term that includes any communication device, encompassing radio, television, cell phones, computer and network hardware, satellite systems and so on, as well as the various services and appliances with them such as video conferencing and distance learning. ICT also includes analog technology, such as paper communication, and any mode that transmits communication.[2]
ICT is a broad subject and the concepts are evolving.[3] It covers any product that will store, retrieve, manipulate, process, transmit, or receive information electronically in a digital form (e.g., personal computers including smartphones, digital television, email, or robots). Skills Framework for the Information Age is one of many models for describing and managing competencies for ICT professionals in the 21st century.[4]
The phrase "information and communication technologies" has been used by academic researchers since the 1980s.[5] The abbreviation "ICT" became popular after it was used in a report to the UK government by Dennis Stevenson in 1997,[6] and then in the revised National Curriculum for England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2000. However, in 2012, the Royal Society recommended that the use of the term "ICT" should be discontinued in British schools "as it has attracted too many negative connotations".[7] From 2014, the National Curriculum has used the word computing, which reflects the addition of computer programming into the curriculum.[8]
The money spent on IT worldwide has been estimated as US$3.8 trillion[10] in 2017 and has been growing at less than 5% per year since 2009. The estimated 2018 growth of the entire ICT is 5%. The biggest growth of 16% is expected in the area of new technologies (IoT, Robotics, AR/VR, and AI).[11]
The 2014 IT budget of the US federal government was nearly $82 billion.[12] IT costs, as a percentage of corporate revenue, have grown 50% since 2002, putting a strain on IT budgets. When looking at current companies' IT budgets, 75% are recurrent costs, used to "keep the lights on" in the IT department, and 25% are the cost of new initiatives for technology development.[13]
The average IT budget has the following breakdown:[13]
34% personnel costs (internal), 31% after correction
16% software costs (external/purchasing category), 29% after correction
33% hardware costs (external/purchasing category), 26% after correction
17% costs of external service providers (external/services), 14% after correction
The estimated amount of money spent in 2022 is just over US$6 trillion.[14]
The world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986 to 15.8 in 1993, over 54.5 in 2000, and to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007, and some 5 zettabytes in 2014.[15][16] This is the informational equivalent to 1.25 stacks of CD-ROM from the earth to the moon in 2007, and the equivalent of 4,500 stacks of printed books from the earth to the sun in 2014. The world's technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was 432 exabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 715 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1993, 1.2 (optimally compressed) zettabytes in 2000, and 1.9 zettabytes in 2007.[15] The world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks was 281 petabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 471 petabytes in 1993, 2.2 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000, 65 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007,[15] and some 100 exabytes in 2014.[17] The world's technological capacity to compute information with humanly guided general-purpose computers grew from 3.0 × 10^8 MIPS in 1986, to 6.4 x 10^12 MIPS in 2007.[15]
The ICT Development Index ranks and compares the level of ICT use and access across the various countries around the world.[19] In 2014 ITU (International Telecommunication Union) released the latest rankings of the IDI, with Denmark attaining the top spot, followed by South Korea. The top 30 countries in the rankings include most high-income countries where the quality of life is higher than average, which includes countries from Europe and other regions such as "Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Japan, Macao (China), New Zealand, Singapore, and the United States; almost all countries surveyed improved their IDI ranking this year."[20]
On 21 December 2001, the United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 56/183, endorsing the holding of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing today's information society.[21] According to this resolution, the General Assembly related the Summit to the United Nations Millennium Declaration's goal of implementing ICT to achieve Millennium Development Goals. It also emphasized a multi-stakeholder approach to achieve these goals, using all stakeholders including civil society and the private sector, in addition to governments.
To help anchor and expand ICT to every habitable part of the world, "2015 is the deadline for achievements of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which global leaders agreed upon in the year 2000."[22]
Today's society shows the ever-growing computer-centric lifestyle, which includes the rapid influx of computers in the modern classroom.
There is evidence that, to be effective in education, ICT must be fully integrated into the pedagogy. Specifically, when teaching literacy and math, using ICT in combination with Writing to Learn[23][24] produces better results than traditional methods alone or ICT alone.[25] The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), a division of the United Nations, has made integrating ICT into education as part of its efforts to ensure equity and access to education. The following, which was taken directly from a UNESCO publication on educational ICT, explains the organization's position on the initiative.
Information and Communication Technology can contribute to universal access to education, equity in education, the delivery of quality learning and teaching, teachers' professional development and more efficient education management, governance, and administration. UNESCO takes a holistic and comprehensive approach to promote ICT in education. Access, inclusion, and quality are among the main challenges they can address. The Organization's Intersectoral Platform for ICT in education focuses on these issues through the joint work of three of its sectors: Communication & Information, Education and Science.[26]
OLPC Laptops at school in Rwanda
Despite the power of computers to enhance and reform teaching and learning practices, improper implementation is a widespread issue beyond the reach of increased funding and technological advances with little evidence that teachers and tutors are properly integrating ICT into everyday learning.[27] Intrinsic barriers such as a belief in more traditional teaching practices and individual attitudes towards computers in education as well as the teachers own comfort with computers and their ability to use them all as result in varying effectiveness in the integration of ICT in the classroom.[28]
School environments play an important role in facilitating language learning. However, language and literacy barriers are obstacles preventing refugees from accessing and attending school, especially outside camp settings.[29]
Mobile-assisted language learning apps are key tools for language learning. Mobile solutions can provide support for refugees' language and literacy challenges in three main areas: literacy development, foreign language learning and translations. Mobile technology is relevant because communicative practice is a key asset for refugees and immigrants as they immerse themselves in a new language and a new society. Well-designed mobile language learning activities connect refugees with mainstream cultures, helping them learn in authentic contexts.[29]
Representatives meet for a policy forum on M-Learning at UNESCO's Mobile Learning Week in March 2017.
ICT has been employed as an educational enhancement in Sub-Saharan Africa since the 1960s. Beginning with television and radio, it extended the reach of education from the classroom to the living room, and to geographical areas that had been beyond the reach of the traditional classroom. As the technology evolved and became more widely used, efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa were also expanded. In the 1990s a massive effort to push computer hardware and software into schools was undertaken, with the goal of familiarizing both students and teachers with computers in the classroom. Since then, multiple projects have endeavoured to continue the expansion of ICT's reach in the region, including the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which by 2015 had distributed over 2.4 million laptops to nearly two million students and teachers.[30]
The inclusion of ICT in the classroom, often referred to as M-Learning, has expanded the reach of educators and improved their ability to track student progress in Sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, the mobile phone has been most important in this effort. Mobile phone use is widespread, and mobile networks cover a wider area than internet networks in the region. The devices are familiar to student, teacher, and parent, and allow increased communication and access to educational materials. In addition to benefits for students, M-learning also offers the opportunity for better teacher training, which leads to a more consistent curriculum across the educational service area. In 2011, UNESCO started a yearly symposium called Mobile Learning Week with the purpose of gathering stakeholders to discuss the M-learning initiative.[30]
Implementation is not without its challenges. While mobile phone and internet use are increasing much more rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa than in other developing countries, the progress is still slow compared to the rest of the developed world, with smartphone penetration only expected to reach 20% by 2017.[30] Additionally, there are gender, social, and geo-political barriers to educational access, and the severity of these barriers vary greatly by country. Overall, 29.6 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa were not in school in the year 2012, owing not just to the geographical divide, but also to political instability, the importance of social origins, social structure, and gender inequality. Once in school, students also face barriers to quality education, such as teacher competency, training and preparedness, access to educational materials, and lack of information management.[30]
In modern society, ICT is ever-present, with over three billion people having access to the Internet.[31] With approximately 8 out of 10 Internet users owning a smartphone, information and data are increasing by leaps and bounds.[32] This rapid growth, especially in developing countries, has led ICT to become a keystone of everyday life, in which life without some facet of technology renders most of clerical, work and routine tasks dysfunctional.
The most recent authoritative data, released in 2014, shows "that Internet use continues to grow steadily, at 6.6% globally in 2014 (3.3% in developed countries, 8.7% in the developing world); the number of Internet users in developing countries has doubled in five years (2009–2014), with two-thirds of all people online now living in the developing world."[20]
However, hurdles are still large. "Of the 4.3 billion people not yet using the Internet, 90% live in developing countries. In the world's 42 Least Connected Countries (LCCs), which are home to 2.5 billion people, access to ICTs remains largely out of reach, particularly for these countries' large rural populations."[33] ICT has yet to penetrate the remote areas of some countries, with many developing countries dearth of any type of Internet. This also includes the availability of telephone lines, particularly the availability of cellular coverage, and other forms of electronic transmission of data. The latest "Measuring the Information Society Report" cautiously stated that the increase in the aforementioned cellular data coverage is ostensible, as "many users have multiple subscriptions, with global growth figures sometimes translating into little real improvement in the level of connectivity of those at the very bottom of the pyramid; an estimated 450 million people worldwide live in places which are still out of reach of mobile cellular service."[31]
Favourably, the gap between the access to the Internet and mobile coverage has decreased substantially in the last fifteen years, in which "2015 was the deadline for achievements of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which global leaders agreed upon in the year 2000, and the new data show ICT progress and highlight remaining gaps."[22] ICT continues to take on a new form, with nanotechnology set to usher in a new wave of ICT electronics and gadgets. ICT newest editions into the modern electronic world include smartwatches, such as the Apple Watch, smart wristbands such as the Nike+ FuelBand, and smart TVs such as Google TV. With desktops soon becoming part of a bygone era, and laptops becoming the preferred method of computing, ICT continues to insinuate and alter itself in the ever-changing globe.
Information communication technologies play a role in facilitating accelerated pluralism in new social movements today. The internet according to Bruce Bimber is "accelerating the process of issue group formation and action"[34] and coined the term accelerated pluralism to explain this new phenomena. ICTs are tools for "enabling social movement leaders and empowering dictators"[35] in effect promoting societal change. ICTs can be used to garner grassroots support for a cause due to the internet allowing for political discourse and direct interventions with state policy[36] as well as change the way complaints from the populace are handled by governments. Furthermore, ICTs in a household are associated with women rejecting justifications for intimate partner violence. According to a study published in 2017, this is likely because "access to ICTs exposes women to different ways of life and different notions about women's role in society and the household, especially in culturally conservative regions where traditional gender expectations contrast observed alternatives."[37]
A review found that in general, outcomes of such ICT-use – which were envisioned as early as 1925[38] – are or can be as good as in-person care with health care use staying similar.[39]
Scholar Mark Warschauer defines a "models of access" framework for analyzing ICT accessibility. In the second chapter of his book, Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide, he describes three models of access to ICTs: devices, conduits, and literacy.[40] Devices and conduits are the most common descriptors for access to ICTs, but they are insufficient for meaningful access to ICTs without third model of access, literacy.[40] Combined, these three models roughly incorporate all twelve of the criteria of "Real Access" to ICT use, conceptualized by a non-profit organization called Bridges.org in 2005:[41]
Physical access to technology
Appropriateness of technology
Affordability of technology and technology use
Human capacity and training
Locally relevant content, applications, and services
The most straightforward model of access for ICT in Mark Warschauer's theory is devices.[40] In this model, access is defined most simply as the ownership of a device such as a phone or computer.[40] Warschauer identifies many flaws with this model, including its inability to account for additional costs of ownership such as software, access to telecommunications, knowledge gaps surrounding computer use, and the role of government regulation in some countries.[40] Therefore, Warschauer argues that considering only devices understates the magnitude of digital inequality. For example, the Pew Research Center notes that 96% of Americans own a smartphone,[42] although most scholars in this field would contend that comprehensive access to ICT in the United States is likely much lower than that.
A conduit requires a connection to a supply line, which for ICT could be a telephone line or Internet line. Accessing the supply requires investment in the proper infrastructure from a commercial company or local government and recurring payments from the user once the line is set up. For this reason, conduits usually divide people based on their geographic locations. As a Pew Research Center poll reports, Americans in rural areas are 12% less likely to have broadband access than other Americans, thereby making them less likely to own the devices.[43] Additionally, these costs can be prohibitive to lower-income families accessing ICTs. These difficulties have led to a shift toward mobile technology; fewer people are purchasing broadband connection and are instead relying on their smartphones for Internet access, which can be found for free at public places such as libraries.[44] Indeed, smartphones are on the rise, with 37% of Americans using smartphones as their primary medium for internet access[44] and 96% of Americans owning a smartphone.[42]
In 1981, Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole studied a tribe in Liberia, the Vai people, who have their own local script. Since about half of those literate in Vai have never had formal schooling, Scribner and Cole were able to test more than 1,000 subjects to measure the mental capabilities of literates over non-literates.[45] This research, which they laid out in their book The Psychology of Literacy,[45] allowed them to study whether the literacy divide exists at the individual level. Warschauer applied their literacy research to ICT literacy as part of his model of ICT access.
Scribner and Cole found no generalizable cognitive benefits from Vai literacy; instead, individual differences on cognitive tasks were due to other factors, like schooling or living environment.[45] The results suggested that there is "no single construct of literacy that divides people into two cognitive camps; [...] rather, there are gradations and types of literacies, with a range of benefits closely related to the specific functions of literacy practices."[40] Furthermore, literacy and social development are intertwined, and the literacy divide does not exist on the individual level.
Warschauer draws on Scribner and Cole's research to argue that ICT literacy functions similarly to literacy acquisition, as they both require resources rather than a narrow cognitive skill. Conclusions about literacy serve as the basis for a theory of the digital divide and ICT access, as detailed below:
There is not just one type of ICT access, but many types. The meaning and value of access varies in particular social contexts. Access exists in gradations rather than in a bipolar opposition. Computer and Internet use brings no automatic benefit outside of its particular functions. ICT use is a social practice, involving access to physical artifacts, content, skills, and social support. And acquisition of ICT access is a matter not only of education but also of power.[40]
Therefore, Warschauer concludes that access to ICT cannot rest on devices or conduits alone; it must also engage physical, digital, human, and social resources.[40] Each of these categories of resources have iterative relations with ICT use. If ICT is used well, it can promote these resources, but if it is used poorly, it can contribute to a cycle of underdevelopment and exclusion.[45]
In the early 21st century a rapid development of ICT services and electronical devices took place, in which the internet servers multiplied by a factor of 1000 to 395 million and its still increasing. This increase can be explained by Moore's law, which states, that the development of ICT increases every year by 16–20%, so it will double in numbers every four to five years.[46] Alongside this development and the high investments in increasing demand for ICT capable products, a high environmental impact came with it. Software and Hardware development as well as production causing already in 2008 the same amount of CO2 emissions as global air travels.[46]
There are two sides of ICT, the positive environmental possibilities and the shadow side. On the positive side, studies proved, that for instance in the OECD countries a reduction of 0.235% energy use is caused by an increase in ICT capital by 1%.[47] On the other side the more digitization is happening, the more energy is consumed, that means for OECD countries 1% increase in internet users causes a raise of 0.026% electricity consumption per capita and for emerging countries the impact is more than 4 times as high.
Currently the scientific forecasts are showing an increase up to 30700 TWh in 2030 which is 20 times more than it was in 2010.[47]
To tackle the environmental issues of ICT, the EU commission plans proper monitoring and reporting of the GHG emissions of different ICT platforms, countries and infrastructure in general. Further the establishment of international norms for reporting and compliance are promoted to foster transparency in this sector.[48]
Moreover it is suggested by scientists to make more ICT investments to exploit the potentials of ICT to alleviate CO2 emissions in general, and to implement a more effective coordination of ICT, energy and growth policies.[49] Consequently, applying the principle of the coase theorem makes sense. It recommends to make investments there, where the marginal avoidance costs of emissions are the lowest, therefore in the developing countries with comparatively lower technological standards and policies as high-tech countries. With these measures, ICT can reduce environmental damage from economic growth and energy consumption by facilitating communication and infrastructure.
^Ozdamli, Fezile; Ozdal, Hasan (May 2015). "Life-long Learning Competence Perceptions of the Teachers and Abilities in Using Information-Communication .Technologies". Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 182: 718–725. doi:10.1016/j.access=free.
^William Melody et al., Information and Communication Technologies: Social Sciences Research and Training: A Report by the ESRC Programme on Information and Communication Technologies, ISBN0-86226-179-1, 1986. Roger Silverstone et al., "Listening to a long conversation: an ethnographic approach to the study of information and communication technologies in the home", Cultural Studies, 5(2), pages 204–227, 1991.
^Blackwell, C.K., Lauricella, A.R. and Wartella, E., 2014. Factors influencing digital technology use in early childhood education. Computers & Education, 77, pp.82-90.
^Bimber, Bruce (1998-01-01). "The Internet and Political Transformation: Populism, Community, and Accelerated Pluralism". Polity. 31 (1): 133–160. doi:10.2307/3235370. JSTOR3235370. S2CID145159285.
^Hussain, Muzammil M.; Howard, Philip N. (2013-03-01). "What Best Explains Successful Protest Cascades? ICTs and the Fuzzy Causes of the Arab Spring". International Studies Review. 15 (1): 48–66. doi:10.1111/misr.12020. hdl:2027.42/97489. ISSN1521-9488.
^Cardoso LG, Sorenson SB. Violence against women and household ownership of radios, computers, and phones in 20 countries. American Journal of Public Health. 2017; 107(7):1175–1181.
^ abcdScribner and Cole, Sylvia and Michael (1981). The Psychology of Literacy. ISBN9780674433014.
^ abGerhard, Fettweis; Zimmermann, Ernesto (2008). "ITC Energy Consumption - Trends and Challenges". The 11th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC 2008) – via ResearchGate.
Feridun, Mete; Karagiannis, Stelios (2009). "Growth Effects of Information and Communication Technologies: Empirical Evidence from the Enlarged EU". Transformations in Business and Economics. 8 (2): 86–99.
The Net (or web) is the worldwide system of interconnected local area network that makes use of the Internet procedure collection (TCP/IP) to connect in between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that contains exclusive, public, academic, business, and government networks of neighborhood to global scope, linked by a broad range of digital, cordless, and optical networking modern technologies. The Web lugs a large variety of details resources and services, such as the woven hypertext papers and applications of the Web (WWW), e-mail, internet telephone, and documents sharing. The origins of the Web date back to research that made it possible for the time-sharing of computer sources, the growth of packet changing in the 1960s and the layout of computer networks for data interaction. The collection of rules (interaction procedures) to enable internetworking on the web developed from r & d commissioned in the 1970s by the Protection Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the USA Division of Defense in partnership with colleges and researchers throughout the USA and in the UK and France. The ARPANET originally acted as a backbone for the interconnection of regional scholastic and military networks in the United States to enable resource sharing. The financing of the National Science Foundation Network as a brand-new backbone in the 1980s, along with private financing for various other industrial extensions, encouraged worldwide engagement in the advancement of brand-new networking technologies and the merger of several networks utilizing DARPA's Net procedure suite. The connecting of commercial networks and business by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the Web, marked the beginning of the transition to the modern-day Net, and produced continual exponential growth as generations of institutional, individual, and mobile computers were connected to the internetwork. Although the Internet was widely utilized by academia in the 1980s, the subsequent commercialization of the Net in the 1990s and past included its services and modern technologies into essentially every facet of modern-day life. Most conventional interaction media, consisting of telephone, radio, television, paper mail, and papers, are reshaped, redefined, or even bypassed by the Internet, bring to life brand-new services such as e-mail, Internet telephone, Internet radio, Internet television, on the internet songs, electronic newspapers, and audio and video clip streaming sites. Papers, publications, and other print publishing have adjusted to internet site modern technology or have been improved into blog writing, internet feeds, and on-line information aggregators. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new kinds of personal interaction via immediate messaging, Web forums, and social networking solutions. Online shopping has actually expanded exponentially for major retailers, local business, and entrepreneurs, as it allows companies to prolong their "traditional" existence to offer a bigger market or perhaps offer goods and services entirely online. Business-to-business and financial solutions on the net influence supply chains throughout whole markets. The Web has no solitary centralized governance in either technical implementation or policies for gain access to and use; each constituent network establishes its very own plans.The overarching definitions of the two primary name areas on the Internet, the Internet Protocol address (IP address) area and the Domain System (DNS), are routed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Company for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technological base and standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the Net Design Job Pressure (IETF), a charitable organization of loosely associated global participants that any person might connect with by adding technological expertise. In November 2006, the Web was consisted of on U.S.A. Today's checklist of the New 7 Marvels.
An information technology system (IT system) is generally an information system, a communications system, or, more specifically speaking, a computer system — including all hardware, software, and peripheral equipment — operated by a limited group of IT users, and an IT project usually refers to the commissioning and implementation of an IT system.[3] IT systems play a vital role in facilitating efficient data management, enhancing communication networks, and supporting organizational processes across various industries. Successful IT projects require meticulous planning and ongoing maintenance to ensure optimal functionality and alignment with organizational objectives.[4]
Although humans have been storing, retrieving, manipulating, analysing and communicating information since the earliest writing systems were developed,[5] the term information technology in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review; authors Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT)."[6] Their definition consists of three categories: techniques for processing, the application of statistical and mathematical methods to decision-making, and the simulation of higher-order thinking through computer programs.[6]
Antikythera mechanism, considered the first mechanical analog computer, dating back to the first century BC.
Based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of IT development: pre-mechanical (3000 BC – 1450 AD), mechanical (1450 – 1840), electromechanical (1840 – 1940), and electronic (1940 to present).[5]
Ideas of computer science were first mentioned before the 1950s under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, where they had discussed and began thinking of computer circuits and numerical calculations. As time went on, the field of information technology and computer science became more complex and was able to handle the processing of more data. Scholarly articles began to be published from different organizations.[7]
During the early computing, Alan Turing, J. Presper Eckert, and John Mauchly were considered some of the major pioneers of computer technology in the mid-1900s. Giving them such credit for their developments, most of their efforts were focused on designing the first digital computer. Along with that, topics such as artificial intelligence began to be brought up as Turing was beginning to question such technology of the time period.[8]
Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, probably initially in the form of a tally stick.[9] The Antikythera mechanism, dating from about the beginning of the first century BC, is generally considered the earliest known mechanical analog computer, and the earliest known geared mechanism.[10] Comparable geared devices did not emerge in Europe until the 16th century, and it was not until 1645 that the first mechanical calculator capable of performing the four basic arithmetical operations was developed.[11]
Electronic computers, using either relays or valves, began to appear in the early 1940s. The electromechanicalZuse Z3, completed in 1941, was the world's first programmable computer, and by modern standards one of the first machines that could be considered a complete computing machine. During the Second World War, Colossus developed the first electronic digital computer to decrypt German messages. Although it was programmable, it was not general-purpose, being designed to perform only a single task. It also lacked the ability to store its program in memory; programming was carried out using plugs and switches to alter the internal wiring.[12] The first recognizably modern electronic digital stored-program computer was the Manchester Baby, which ran its first program on 21 June 1948.[13]
The development of transistors in the late 1940s at Bell Laboratories allowed a new generation of computers to be designed with greatly reduced power consumption. The first commercially available stored-program computer, the Ferranti Mark I, contained 4050 valves and had a power consumption of 25 kilowatts. By comparison, the first transistorized computer developed at the University of Manchester and operational by November 1953, consumed only 150 watts in its final version.[14]
By 1984, according to the National Westminster Bank Quarterly Review, the term information technology had been redefined as "the convergence of telecommunications and computing technology (...generally known in Britain as information technology)." We then begin to see the appearance of the term in 1990 contained within documents for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).[25]
Innovations in technology have already revolutionized the world by the twenty-first century as people have gained access to different online services. This has changed the workforce drastically as thirty percent of U.S. workers were already in careers in this profession. 136.9 million people were personally connected to the Internet, which was equivalent to 51 million households.[26] Along with the Internet, new types of technology were also being introduced across the globe, which has improved efficiency and made things easier across the globe.
As technology revolutionized society, millions of processes could be completed in seconds. Innovations in communication were crucial as people increasingly relied on computers to communicate via telephone lines and cable networks. The introduction of the email was considered revolutionary as "companies in one part of the world could communicate by e-mail with suppliers and buyers in another part of the world...".[27]
Not only personally, computers and technology have also revolutionized the marketing industry, resulting in more buyers of their products. In 2002, Americans exceeded $28 billion in goods just over the Internet alone while e-commerce a decade later resulted in $289 billion in sales.[27] And as computers are rapidly becoming more sophisticated by the day, they are becoming more used as people are becoming more reliant on them during the twenty-first century.
Electronic data processing or business information processing can refer to the use of automated methods to process commercial data. Typically, this uses relatively simple, repetitive activities to process large volumes of similar information. For example: stock updates applied to an inventory, banking transactions applied to account and customer master files, booking and ticketing transactions to an airline's reservation system, billing for utility services. The modifier "electronic" or "automatic" was used with "data processing" (DP), especially c. 1960, to distinguish human clerical data processing from that done by computer.[28][29]
Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a long strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes, a technology now obsolete.[30] Electronic data storage, which is used in modern computers, dates from World War II, when a form of delay-line memory was developed to remove the clutter from radar signals, the first practical application of which was the mercury delay line.[31] The first random-access digital storage device was the Williams tube, which was based on a standard cathode ray tube.[32] However, the information stored in it and delay-line memory was volatile in the fact that it had to be continuously refreshed, and thus was lost once power was removed. The earliest form of non-volatile computer storage was the magnetic drum, invented in 1932[33] and used in the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercially available general-purpose electronic computer.[34]
IBM card storage warehouse located in Alexandria, Virginia in 1959. This is where the United States government kept storage of punched cards.
IBM introduced the first hard disk drive in 1956, as a component of their 305 RAMAC computer system.[35]: 6 Most digital data today is still stored magnetically on hard disks, or optically on media such as CD-ROMs.[36]: 4–5 Until 2002 most information was stored on analog devices, but that year digital storage capacity exceeded analog for the first time. As of 2007[update], almost 94% of the data stored worldwide was held digitally:[37] 52% on hard disks, 28% on optical devices, and 11% on digital magnetic tape. It has been estimated that the worldwide capacity to store information on electronic devices grew from less than 3 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007,[38] doubling roughly every 3 years.[39]
All DMS consist of components; they allow the data they store to be accessed simultaneously by many users while maintaining its integrity.[43] All databases are common in one point that the structure of the data they contain is defined and stored separately from the data itself, in a database schema.[40]
Data transmission has three aspects: transmission, propagation, and reception.[46] It can be broadly categorized as broadcasting, in which information is transmitted unidirectionally downstream, or telecommunications, with bidirectional upstream and downstream channels.[38]
XML has been increasingly employed as a means of data interchange since the early 2000s,[47] particularly for machine-oriented interactions such as those involved in web-oriented protocols such as SOAP,[45] describing "data-in-transit rather than... data-at-rest".[47]
Hilbert and Lopez identify the exponential pace of technological change (a kind of Moore's law): machines' application-specific capacity to compute information per capita roughly doubled every 14 months between 1986 and 2007; the per capita capacity of the world's general-purpose computers doubled every 18 months during the same two decades; the global telecommunication capacity per capita doubled every 34 months; the world's storage capacity per capita required roughly 40 months to double (every 3 years); and per capita broadcast information has doubled every 12.3 years.[38]
Massive amounts of data are stored worldwide every day, but unless it can be analyzed and presented effectively it essentially resides in what have been called data tombs: "data archives that are seldom visited".[48] To address that issue, the field of data mining — "the process of discovering interesting patterns and knowledge from large amounts of data"[49] — emerged in the late 1980s.[50]
A woman sending an email at an internet cafe's public computer.
The technology and services IT provides for sending and receiving electronic messages (called "letters" or "electronic letters") over a distributed (including global) computer network. In terms of the composition of elements and the principle of operation, electronic mail practically repeats the system of regular (paper) mail, borrowing both terms (mail, letter, envelope, attachment, box, delivery, and others) and characteristic features — ease of use, message transmission delays, sufficient reliability and at the same time no guarantee of delivery. The advantages of e-mail are: easily perceived and remembered by a person addresses of the form user_name@domain_name (for example, somebody@example.com); the ability to transfer both plain text and formatted, as well as arbitrary files; independence of servers (in the general case, they address each other directly); sufficiently high reliability of message delivery; ease of use by humans and programs.
The disadvantages of e-mail include: the presence of such a phenomenon as spam (massive advertising and viral mailings); the theoretical impossibility of guaranteed delivery of a particular letter; possible delays in message delivery (up to several days); limits on the size of one message and on the total size of messages in the mailbox (personal for users).
A search system is software and hardware complex with a web interface that provides the ability to look for information on the Internet. A search engine usually means a site that hosts the interface (front-end) of the system. The software part of a search engine is a search engine (search engine) — a set of programs that provides the functionality of a search engine and is usually a trade secret of the search engine developer company. Most search engines look for information on World Wide Web sites, but there are also systems that can look for files on FTP servers, items in online stores, and information on Usenet newsgroups. Improving search is one of the priorities of the modern Internet (see the Deep Web article about the main problems in the work of search engines).
Companies in the information technology field are often discussed as a group as the "tech sector" or the "tech industry."[51][52][53] These titles can be misleading at times and should not be mistaken for "tech companies," which are generally large scale, for-profit corporations that sell consumer technology and software. From a business perspective, information technology departments are a "cost center" the majority of the time. A cost center is a department or staff which incurs expenses, or "costs," within a company rather than generating profits or revenue streams. Modern businesses rely heavily on technology for their day-to-day operations, so the expenses delegated to cover technology that facilitates business in a more efficient manner are usually seen as "just the cost of doing business." IT departments are allocated funds by senior leadership and must attempt to achieve the desired deliverables while staying within that budget. Government and the private sector might have different funding mechanisms, but the principles are more or less the same. This is an often overlooked reason for the rapid interest in automation and artificial intelligence, but the constant pressure to do more with less is opening the door for automation to take control of at least some minor operations in large companies.
Many companies now have IT departments for managing the computers, networks, and other technical areas of their businesses. Companies have also sought to integrate IT with business outcomes and decision-making through a BizOps or business operations department.[54]
In a business context, the Information Technology Association of America has defined information technology as "the study, design, development, application, implementation, support, or management of computer-based information systems".[55][page needed] The responsibilities of those working in the field include network administration, software development and installation, and the planning and management of an organization's technology life cycle, by which hardware and software are maintained, upgraded, and replaced.
Information services is a term somewhat loosely applied to a variety of IT-related services offered by commercial companies,[56][57][58] as well as data brokers.
U.S. Employment distribution of computer systems design and related services, 2011[59]
U.S. Employment in the computer systems and design related services industry, in thousands, 1990–2011[59]
U.S. Occupational growth and wages in computer systems design and related services, 2010–2020[59]
U.S. projected percent change in employment in selected occupations in computer systems design and related services, 2010–2020[59]
U.S. projected average annual percent change in output and employment in selected industries, 2010–2020[59]
The field of information ethics was established by mathematician Norbert Wiener in the 1940s.[60]: 9 Some of the ethical issues associated with the use of information technology include:[61]: 20–21
Breaches of copyright by those downloading files stored without the permission of the copyright holders
Employers monitoring their employees' emails and other Internet usage
Research suggests that IT projects in business and public administration can easily become significant in scale. Research conducted by McKinsey in collaboration with the University of Oxford suggested that half of all large-scale IT projects (those with initial cost estimates of $15 million or more) often failed to maintain costs within their initial budgets or to complete on time.[62]
^On the later more broad application of the term IT, Keary comments: "In its original application 'information technology' was appropriate to describe the convergence of technologies with application in the vast field of data storage, retrieval, processing, and dissemination. This useful conceptual term has since been converted to what purports to be of great use, but without the reinforcement of definition ... the term IT lacks substance when applied to the name of any function, discipline, or position."[2]
^
Chandler, Daniel; Munday, Rod (10 February 2011), "Information technology", A Dictionary of Media and Communication (first ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN978-0199568758, retrieved 1 August 2012, Commonly a synonym for computers and computer networks but more broadly designating any technology that is used to generate, store, process, and/or distribute information electronically, including television and telephone..
^Henderson, H. (2017). computer science. In H. Henderson, Facts on File science library: Encyclopedia of computer science and technology. (3rd ed.). [Online]. New York: Facts On File.
^Cooke-Yarborough, E. H. (June 1998), "Some early transistor applications in the UK", Engineering Science & Education Journal, 7 (3): 100–106, doi:10.1049/esej:19980301 (inactive 12 July 2025), ISSN0963-7346citation: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link).
^US2802760A, Lincoln, Derick & Frosch, Carl J., "Oxidation of semiconductive surfaces for controlled diffusion", issued 13 August 1957
^Information technology. (2003). In E.D. Reilly, A. Ralston & D. Hemmendinger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of computer science. (4th ed.).
^Stewart, C.M. (2018). Computers. In S. Bronner (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American studies. [Online]. Johns Hopkins University Press.
^ abNorthrup, C.C. (2013). Computers. In C. Clark Northrup (Ed.), Encyclopedia of world trade: from ancient times to the present. [Online]. London: Routledge.
^Universität Klagenfurt (ed.), "Magnetic drum", Virtual Exhibitions in Informatics, archived from the original on 21 June 2006, retrieved 21 August 2011.
^Proctor, K. Scott (2011), Optimizing and Assessing Information Technology: Improving Business Project Execution, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN978-1-118-10263-3.
^Bynum, Terrell Ward (2008), "Norbert Wiener and the Rise of Information Ethics", in van den Hoven, Jeroen; Weckert, John (eds.), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, ISBN978-0-521-85549-5.
^Reynolds, George (2009), Ethics in Information Technology, Cengage Learning, ISBN978-0-538-74622-9.
Lavington, Simon (1980), Early British Computers, Manchester University Press, ISBN978-0-7190-0810-8
Lavington, Simon (1998), A History of Manchester Computers (2nd ed.), The British Computer Society, ISBN978-1-902505-01-5
Pardede, Eric (2009), Open and Novel Issues in XML Database Applications, Information Science Reference, ISBN978-1-60566-308-1
Ralston, Anthony; Hemmendinger, David; Reilly, Edwin D., eds. (2000), Encyclopedia of Computer Science (4th ed.), Nature Publishing Group, ISBN978-1-56159-248-7
van der Aalst, Wil M. P. (2011), Process Mining: Discovery, Conformance and Enhancement of Business Processes, Springer, ISBN978-3-642-19344-6
Ward, Patricia; Dafoulas, George S. (2006), Database Management Systems, Cengage Learning EMEA, ISBN978-1-84480-452-8
Weik, Martin (2000), Computer Science and Communications Dictionary, vol. 2, Springer, ISBN978-0-7923-8425-0
Wright, Michael T. (2012), "The Front Dial of the Antikythera Mechanism", in Koetsier, Teun; Ceccarelli, Marco (eds.), Explorations in the History of Machines and Mechanisms: Proceedings of HMM2012, Springer, pp. 279–292, ISBN978-94-007-4131-7
Look for experience, response times, security measures, client reviews, and service flexibility. A good provider will understand your industry, offer proactive support, and scale services with your business growth.
Absolutely. Small businesses benefit from professional IT services to protect data, maintain systems, avoid downtime, and plan for growth. Even basic IT support ensures your technology works efficiently, helping you stay competitive without needing an in-house IT department.
Regular maintenance—often monthly or quarterly—ensures your systems stay secure, updated, and free of issues. Preventative IT maintenance can reduce downtime, extend equipment life, and identify potential threats before they cause costly disruptions.
Yes, most providers tailor services to suit your business size, industry, and needs—whether you need full IT management or specific services like helpdesk support, cybersecurity, or cloud migration.
Managed IT services involve outsourcing your company’s IT support and infrastructure to a professional provider. This includes monitoring, maintenance, data security, and tech support, allowing you to focus on your business while ensuring your systems stay secure, updated, and running smoothly.
![U.S. Employment distribution of computer systems design and related services, 2011[59]](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AComputerSystemsEmployment_distribution_.png)
![U.S. Employment in the computer systems and design related services industry, in thousands, 1990–2011[59]](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AEmploymentComputerSystems.png)
![U.S. Occupational growth and wages in computer systems design and related services, 2010–2020[59]](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AComputerSystemsOccupationalGrowthWages.png){kind=small}
![U.S. projected percent change in employment in selected occupations in computer systems design and related services, 2010–2020[59]](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AProjectedEmploymentChangeComputerSystems.png)
![U.S. projected average annual percent change in output and employment in selected industries, 2010–2020[59]](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AProjectedAverageAnnualEmploymentChangeSelectedIndustries.png)
