Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: economic development

  • Silicon Valleys of the Twentieth Century

    Silicon Valleys of the Twentieth Century

    The rise and fall of industrial hubs is a topic that fascinates this blog and the excellent BBC and US National Public Radio series Six Routes to a Richer World discusses how countries as disparate as Germany, Brazil, China and the United States are carving their own paths to prosperity in the 21st Century.

    In the US segment, the show looks at one of America’s industrial centres of last century – Dayton, Ohio.

    The home of the Wright Brothers, Dayton also saw the invention of the cash register, air conditioner and even the self starting motor. In the early part of the Twentieth Century it held the most patents per capita of any US city and workers flocked to the region for high paying manufacturing job.

    Manufacturing, and research, is largely gone from Dayton today and the question posed is could the successful cities of California’s Bay Area follow a similar path this Century.

    Whether Silicon Valley and San Francisco fade will be a matter of historical forces that are difficult to see right now, but the likelihood can’t be underestimated.

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  • Uber and the cities of the future

    Uber and the cities of the future

    “We’re building the cities of the future” claims David Plouffe, Uber’s Senior Vice President for Policy & Strategy.

    Plouffe was speaking in Uber’s head office ahead of this year’s Dreamforce conference where the transportation disrupter was announcing the next phases of its Uber Business service.

    While western societies still remain car dependent, there’s a shift underway as people prefer to live in the cities rather than the suburbs and the far flung exurbs, particularly for younger people. “For my generation it was a big deal to get a car,” says the 48 year old Plouffe. “Millennials today don’t have that same identification – they don’t want to own a car.”

    That shift, which is not just confined to millennials, presents challenges for cities believes Plouffe. “Cities need to support people who are moving in at historic rates,” he says. “Our cities are facing huge challenges.”

    “Every city is facing congestion challenges which will only get worse over the next ten to fifteen years as the number of people moving into the world cities at a historic pace.”

    “Most cities do not have the will or the money to build new public transportation systems,” Plouffe says. “The only way they are going to deal with this is for people to buy less cars, families to only have one car and to reduce the number of cars on the road.”

    Not surprisingly, Plouffe sees this as being where Uber can help in expanding accessible and affordable transport to parts of cities which are unlikely to get public transit and to increase the carrying capacity of existing infrastructure.

    This is an interesting point of view and one that has some validity if we accept the view that ‘on-demand’ services like Uber and others are actually aimed at all groups and not just the affluent upper middle classes and the rich.

    For cities struggling to meet the demands of growing populations and shrinking budgets, services like Uber and Lyft may be part of the answer. That though will take some reform and a change of attitude from many regulators.

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  • Taiwan enters the startups race

    Taiwan enters the startups race

    Battered by a declining Chinese market for its manufacturing goods, Taiwan is having to look elsewhere for its economic growth.

    Startups are one idea report Reuters News describing how the Taiwanese National Development Council set up HeadStart a year ago to create an tech entrepreneur ecosystem by relaxing regulations for registering start-ups, matching funds invested into projects and creating tech hubs.

    So far HeadStart has attracted around $US 438 million in funds and now Alibaba founder Jack Ma says he wanted to set up a $300 million fund to support Taiwanese entrepreneurs.

    While the Reuters piece focuses on the ecosystem built around fading smartphone maker HTC and the major computer chip fabricators, Taiwan’s strength may well lie in its small business roots as much of the island’s industrial strength has been built, like Japan’s, on its army of small family firms supplying the larger companies.

    That Taiwan needs to diversify its economy is a warning to other less advanced economies that depending on a narrow band of exports leaves a nation open to external risks. It might be time for others to be looking at how to encourage their entrepreneurs.

    Image of Taiwanese bronze buddha by Shirley B through freeimages.com

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  • India goes digital

    India goes digital

    “If Indians can work in Google. Why can’t Google be made in India?” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked last week when he launched the Digital India program.

    Digital India is an ambitious project based on three areas of vision; getting infrastructure to all billion Indians, digitally empowering those citizens and improving government through the use of technology.

    Certainly the project has caught the imagination of the business community with Indian tech companies pledging $US 72 billion to the initiative with the promise of over a million jobs being created.

    In the past, India has been notable for its slow, bureaucratic business ways but Prime Minister Modi is promising to change all of that under the Digital India initiative.

    “The world is changing, quicker than ever before and we cannot remain oblivious to that. If we don’t innovate, if we don’t come up with cutting edge products there will be stagnation”

    While India’s government is talking the talk, actually changing the nation’s business community is going to be a huge but not impossible task although the Digital India project has had a difficult history.

    That task though is necessary as South Asia has for decades lagged the growth of the countries to their East however now countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have the benefit of younger workforces while powerhouses such as China, Japan and South Korea age.

    Should we see an Indian Google in the near future it won’t look like today’s Silicon Valley giants given the cultural differences between America’s Bay Area and India’s business communities.

    However if we do see an ‘Indian Google’ it will be huge given the size of the nation’s domestic market. Like China’s Alibaba, a successful local enterprise can become a global player just based on its user numbers.

    There’s many barriers to an Indian Google happening but those who scoff at the idea should remember how fifty years ago the thought of Japan being a high tech manufacturer were laughed at and the idea of China being the world’s factory was unthinkable.

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  • Internet adoption and wealth

    Internet adoption and wealth

    With 85 percent of Americans now online it’s safe to say the internet has reached saturation point in North America.

    However not all groups have been as quick to get online and the Pew Internet Survey has a detailed analysis of adoption rates across different demographic segments.

    The results aren’t particularly surprising with lower adoption rates reflecting class, race and education differences although older age groups are the fastest growing segment.

    Ultimately adoption comes down to affluence with the key chart being the connection rates across income groups.

    What the Pew report does illustrate is how critical the internet is to income levels and why it's important for the disadvantaged to be connected for them to participate in the new economy. For countries following affluent nations in internet adoption, getting disadvantaged communities connected might be one of the easiest ways they can improve national income, education and well being.

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