I’ve just watched on C-SPAN TV-channel Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s appearance at the Economic Club of Washington, DC. Very interesting talk, a lot of insights on new technologies in the modern world. One of his expressions especially struck me: “information poverty”. No doubt: wealth of nation increasingly will be related to the availability of information. Those who will have information poverty will stay on sidelines of history.
Information poverty vs. information abundance
Alisher Faizullaev 
I have seen a picture on the web taken in one of the African countries. Someone posted it as a fun but I was quite impressed. Imagine, an outdoors newsstand, young people are standing in a line to read texts printed on regular A4 papers. And the headline says: INTERNET. I think the information obtained even in this form can improve the lives of those people and empowers them to address the real poverty.
LikeLike
Agree.
LikeLike
Then “information literacy” comes to play.. You have to be able to navigate through the this noice, which is also called “information overload”. To find what you need, classify, to put into use.. Or, as Schmidt says, to find the needle in a haystack. Unfortunately, these skills are not taught anywhere as opposed to regular literacy.
I read a short article about this talk just loved a few of his observations, like, people in developing world prefer having mobile to having a running water at home. Or the fact that the value of a mobile device is not in itself but in networks it is connected to.
LikeLike
Thank you, Otabek, very interesting. I remember during late eighties and early nineties when the Soviet people started to travel abroad more or less freely, most of them brought back video cameras and videocassette recorders despite their more urgent need for some basic consumer products. I also remember my discussion with one of Nokia’s vice-presidents some 13 years ago in Helsinki: he said that poorest people even in the poorest African countries try buying mobile phones, and that is very wise thing to do since the modern technology is a most effective means for economic development.
By the way, I believe, one can on YouTube find plenty of Eric Schmidt’s interesting video interviews and presentations. I like his manner of speaking – polite, diplomatic, confident and knowledgeable.
LikeLike
Thank you. I may add that obtaining information is a half battle for knowledge.
LikeLike
Hi! Glad I found your web, very interesting stuff.
About “Information poverty vs. information abundance” as you know ” KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE”. So , yes it would be #1 ….
LikeLike