Michael Nelson on Shaping the Future of the Internet
We are only 15% of the way through the Internet revolution, according to Michael Nelson, which is either very exciting or very scary. Nelson, Visiting Professor in the Georgetown University Communication, Culture and Technology Program, shared his insight on what the future of the Internet might be as an ictQATAR-connected speaker in April 2010. He will be back in Doha this October as part of ictQATAR’s Digitally Open Forum.
ICT Connector had the chance to talk with Nelson following his Connected Speaker presentation as he expanded on some of his most startling predictions about the future of the internet.
You describe the internet as being an adolescent. What do you mean by this?
I compare the internet to an adolescent because, as an adolescent, the internet is at a critical point in its growth. The teenager has many different options, they need to decide if they are going to go to college, what they are growing up to be, how hard they are going to work, all these choices are ahead of them and they have to make these choices, and they may define the next 30 or 40 or 50 years of their lives. And that’s where we are with the internet today.
Why do you believe it is people that make technology develop and not hardware?
With the internet in particular, the technology is so powerful and so flexible. There are so many different things we can do. It is up to people to decide what we are going to do. The market place, the vendors and the network providers all have a role in deciding which of the different possible technological futures we embrace. That’s why I focus on the people.
It is also true that people are the slower piece of the puzzle. The technology moves ahead at an ever accelerating pace, but people can only assimilate so much technology. They can only learn so many things in a given day or a given year, and that’s what slows down the realization of the new applications for development.
When we discuss cloud computing, there are always privacy and security concerns. What is your take on these concerns?
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