As the new year 2009 beckons amidst recession and financial turmoil things get gradually clear that this year will be more about a struggle for sustenance and consolidation unlike 2008. There will be more surprises and shakedown expected in the market where in it really gets tough going for large organizations carrying a lot of unnecessary baggage and archaic business practices. These are times to be lean and agile to change. Individuals need to multitask and double their roles in business to sustain this shakedown. Inspite of bailout efforts by governments and Fed and several Financial institutions to insulate the recession one thiing is pretty clear…. This slowdown is here to stay and the road to recovery is going to be long and slow. Accepting the economics of that will be the best foot forward. This period is an excellent opportunity for organizations to focus on initiatives like quality, bench marking practices to meet global standards .
I will looking at two emerging areas of technology that is of growing industry concern and needs our attention. Increasing utility of ICT and its related infrastructure has in one way made our lives easier and flat. But at the same time all these additional infrastructure burdens us with more usage of energy as well as indirectly towards global warming. Addressing this concern is a recently formed body called Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change that had its first meeting at the IGF 2008 . Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change ( DCICC ) is proving to be an emerging issue for us at ICT. The issue was first highlighted by Dr Arthur Levin in his paper here. ITU put together an impressive report on the actual issue that can be accessed here . According to Dr Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of ITU , ICT’s currently contribute to 2-3 % of the Greenhouse gas emissions. To get better understanding of the issue one can view the following youtube videos available here .
The Second issue that is of increasing concern is that in the recent times we are rapidly moving towards ubiquitous internet / mobile computing wherein we are virtually online for all the hours that we are awake either from our desktops or from our mobile. The internet is a key enabler in todays world but at the same time by itself is uncharted territory for most of the new users and there are so many ways that one can loose direction or be lured into some scam or other . With the advent of Web 2.0 it has made the challenges immense as most of it is user generated content. Hence there is a crying Need for an Internet Interpol. Can we have a common law across the globe ?
Whenever there is a infringement or a crime committed online it is found that perpetrator of the crime is in some corner of the earth and the crime is committed at another part of the world and the victim is somewhere else. Apart from the logistic challege to bring the crime to light there is evenn greater challenge to bring such perpetrators to the book and accountability. It needs governements to work together in unison to bring such criminals to task. Currently there is a need for intervention from the other country and based on reciprocity. We have all understood the grave nature of this issue and brought into place IT acts and IETF’s and CERT’s but still the porous nature exist where cross border cybercrime is concerned. Unless there is a untified task force available like a UN body this kind of crime cannot be curbed. Harmonization of cyber law with mechanism and framework for cross border coordination is needed. We need to codify common principles that can be adopted by participating countries in their legal jurispudence and bring about commonality approach
Both these issue need our participation and attention in this ever increasing world of Internet.
Serving my time at Earth 