Difference between revisions of "Talk:IT Abroad"

Revision as of 05:09, 21 October 2004

Walker Under the "North-South" topic fall many interesting subtopics concerning IT in an international context, but there are some that fall a bit outside the "developed world -- developing world" dichotomy that are also of interest...

• Profile of <nation>'s IT ecosystem: How does culture, level of development, political structure, broader industrial policy affect <nation>'s IT ecosystem. Of particular interest are the ways in which <nation>'s policies and practices differ from the United States, and if there is anything that can be learned or applied from <nation>'s model. Also of interest is <nation>'s ecosystem in relation to the broader global community(this aspect was partly touched upon in a post above "IT projects that span countries with different policies?" ). I am thinking that <nation> might be India or China, but also could be Germany, Japan, Britain, etc.

• IT in East Asia / IT in the EU / etc.: Similar to the subtopic above, but with a focus on the relationship between regional blocks of nations. The wars over standards and IP, for example, often break along regional lines. With respect to East Asia, there looks to be an interesting story to tell regarding the growing ties between China, Japan, and South Korea in IT... IPV6, mobiles, Linux; what are the implications for Open Source, and the broader structure of the software industry?

Iking Another idea in the international realm: should an emerging nation, still learning to feed, clothe and educate its citizens, focus significant resources on IT? The underlying question is how IT can benefit an emerging nation, as distinct from how we perceive its impact in developed nations, and whether the return - short and long term - justifies the expenditure of resources in the short term (considering that housing, education, health care, etc. all compete for those same resources).

From Kirkal...

hmmm...these topics sound interesting but i have two qs:

1. these topics are going to have a large overlap with the outsourcing discussions and project.
2. i am assuming that this course is geared towards examining IT policy in the US and its effects on industry and technology. Profiles of IT in East Asia,etc. would not really be germane unless examined purely from an American point of view and that wouldn't exactly cover the entire topic,would it?

Walker, concerning Kirkal's questions...

On question 2, first, there is at least one topic suggested by the profs in which the focus is entirely outside of the United States -- "North-South":"Pros/Cons of Open Source Usage in the Developing World". Second, the angle I am thinking of has a great deal of relevance to the United States -- check out what I wrote above.

On question 1, I expect there might be a large overlap with the outsourcing topic depending on the specific subject and nation chosen, but there is a lot to be looked at besides offshore outsourcing in the international arena. Again I gave a couple of examples above.

... On Should a Country Invest in IT

[RLM] The question may not simply be should an "emerging" nation invest significant resources. Related to this topic, which I briefly mentioned in the North-South Discussion section, as members of NGOs like WTO, emerging nations may be required to implement certain (WTO) policies like a certain notion of IP rights as mentioned in the Aspray book which may or may not fit well with that nation's cultural values. The question may change to not only include whether and how best to invest their scarce resources in IT when basic needs have yet to be met, but how best to manage their infrastructure since their governments may be required to implement certain (IT/IP) policies that may hurt or not make much sense locally. I don't have any specific examples but my point was to add an extra level of analysis.