Since the Information revolution started fifty years ago, all developed countries’ growth and prosperity are mostly determined by the production of knowledge and innovations. Let’s look at the software industry, thirty years ago Microsoft was an unknown company founded by a few students in Harvard University but today it is the largest software company with hundred billion dollars capital and makes its founder, Bill Gates the richest man in the world. Ten years ago, nobody heard of Google but this company, also founded by two students at Stanford University, has become the biggest threat to Microsoft and it is possible that Google may replace Microsoft to be the top company in software industry. What Microsoft and Google have but others do not? The answer is knowledge and that is why I believe having a good education to obtain knowledge will have significant influence on a person’s careers and wealth.
My friend, a professor in history told me that every country must follow phases of economic evolution – from agriculture to industrial then to knowledge based on historical perspective. I did not agree with him because I believe that we can skip the industrial phase and jump directly into the knowledge phase. My logic was: Why do we have to base progress according to historical perspective? Why can’t we break the sequence? My friend cited several economic theories based on evidences in Europe and the U.S that developed countries evolve by following the sequence of agriculture, industrial then moving toward knowledge society. I told him: “In that case, don’t you think developing countries will never be able to catch up and always have to stay behind developed countries? Don’t you think those theories which deeply rooted in “Colonial sentiment” is already obsolete?” My logic: Today there are factors that can accelerate economic progress such as the development of semiconductor technology, the establishment of computing and software industry, and the influence of the internet. These factors contribute to the globalization and the creation of knowledge society that never happen before in human history.
Since he is a history professor, I used India as an example. India is an agriculture society that gained independent in 1947, for almost 40 years India has not making much progress. Its economy had not grown but almost come to the verse of collapse because domestic progress failed to keep pace the rest of the world as its population expanded rapidly. Begin in 1991, the Indian government started economic reforms with many successful actions but one of the key reforms was education that brought India from a “Colonial education system” into a respected “science and technology focus” education system. By having a knowledgeable workforce, India has evolved quickly to establish a knowledge society as evidence by its software industry. In 1990 India’s software industry contribution to GDP was less than 0.1% but today it has grown to 15% of GDP with 80 billion dollars business and over million people employed. India is not known as an industrial country, at least not yet, but nobody can deny its knowledge industry symbolize by the software industry so I think it is possible to skip a phase to go from agriculture to knowledge society.
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Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
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Source: SEGVN