At IEEE, we all know that the development of science and expertise is the engine that drives the enchancment of the high quality of life for each individual on this planet. Unfortunately, as we’re all conscious, at present’s world faces important challenges, together with escalating conflicts, a local weather disaster, meals insecurity, gender inequality, and the roughly 2.7 billion individuals who can’t entry the Internet.
Bridging the divide
The COVID-19 pandemic uncovered the digital divide like by no means earlier than. The world noticed the want for common broadband connectivity for distant work, on-line schooling, telemedicine, leisure, and social networking. Those who had entry thrived whereas these with out it struggled. As hundreds of thousands of lecture rooms moved on-line, the lack of connectivity made it troublesome for some college students to take part in distant studying. Adults who couldn’t carry out their job just about confronted layoffs or diminished work hours.
The pandemic additionally uncovered weaknesses in the international infrastructure that helps the residents of the world. It grew to become much more obvious that important communications, computing, vitality, and distribution infrastructure was not all the time equitably distributed, notably in much less developed areas.
Nearly 45 p.c of world households do not need entry to the Internet, in line with UNESCO. A report from UNICEF estimates that just about two-thirds of the world’s schoolchildren lack Internet entry at dwelling.
This digital divide is especially impactful on ladies. who’re 23 p.c much less probably than males to make use of the Internet. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in 10 nations throughout Africa, Asia, and South America, ladies are between 30 p.c and 50 p.c much less probably than males to utilize the Internet.
Even in developed nations, Internet entry is usually decrease than one may think. More than six p.c of the U.S. inhabitants doesn’t have a high-speed connection. In Australia, the determine is 13 p.c. Globally, simply over half of households have an Internet connection, in line with UNESCO. In the developed world, 87 p.c are linked, in contrast with 47 p.c in creating nations and simply 19 p.c in the least developed nations.
Benefits of expertise
As IEEE appears to guide the growth of expertise to sort out local weather change and empower common prosperity, it’s important that we acknowledge the position that significant connectivity and digital expertise play in the group’s targets to assist international sustainability, drive financial progress, and rework well being care, schooling, employment, gender equality, and youth empowerment.
IEEE members round the globe are repeatedly creating and making use of expertise to assist clear up these issues. It is that common ardour—to enhance international circumstances—that’s at the coronary heart of our mission, in addition to our increasing partnerships and important actions supporting the achievement of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
One rising partnership is with the International Telecommunication Union, a U.N. specialised company that helps set coverage associated to info and communication applied sciences. IEEE Member Doreen Bogdan-Martin was elected as ITU secretary-general and took workplace on 1 January, changing into the first lady to guide the 155-year-old group. Bogdan-Martin is the recipient of this 12 months’s IEEE President’s Award [see sidebar].
IEEE and ITU share the purpose of bringing the advantages of expertise to all of humanity. I look ahead to working carefully with the U.N. company to advertise significant connectivity, intensify cooperation to attach the unconnected, and strengthen the alignment of digital applied sciences with inclusive sustainable growth.
I actually consider that one in every of the most necessary functions of expertise is to enhance individuals’s lives. For these in underserved areas of the world, expertise can enhance academic alternatives, present higher well being care, alleviate struggling, and preserve human dignity.
Technology and technologists, notably IEEE members, have a big position to play in shaping life on this planet. They can use their abilities to develop and advance expertise—from inexperienced vitality to decreasing waste and emissions, and from transportation electrification to digital schooling, well being, and agriculture. As an individual who believes in the energy of expertise to learn humanity, I discover this to be a really compelling imaginative and prescient for our shared future.
Please share your ideas with me: president@ieee.org.
—SAIFUR RAHMAN
IEEE president and CEO
This article seems in the June 2023 print problem as “Connecting the Unconnected.”