by Sudeepa Nair

Created on: March 16, 2009

The Information age is believed to have begun roughly in the 1990's when widespread use of computers and information sharing technologies like the Internet gave rise to anytime anywhere accessibility to information. Some characteristics of the information age include, use of information to achieve high productivity, global use of information, emphasis on innovation rather than economies of scale and high social, economic and political awareness. As opposed to the industrial age, when laborious tasks were believed to yield returns, the information age relies on the production and sharing of knowledge and information to achieve profits.

As the world progresses through the information age, there are some global challenges that might be faced.

1. Information security This challenge is faced by everyone from individuals and business firms to governments, security agencies and defense forces. As information becomes easily accessible via the Internet, channelizing and controlling the dissemination of information becomes more and more difficult. Right from a ten-year old who unwittingly leaves personal information in a chat room to security agencies who rely on vast communication networks for quick transmission of information, everyone is under the threat of information theft and misuse. It ceases to be a mere technological issue when it transcends national boundaries and enters into the realms of terrorism and other international criminal activities.

2. Digital and Internet laws Legal systems around the world are at varying degrees of readiness when it comes to issues concerned with the digital world. This includes copyright issues, Intellectual property rights and so on. The Internet makes such issues international in nature, so a global uniform digital law will become a necessity in future.

3. Social challenges As businesses go global there will be a pressing need to bridge the digital divide among nations and also within national borders. Weaving in information technology into the educational systems across the world poses a formidable challenge, especially so when illiteracy still plagues populous countries like India and China. Ironically, Asia, the continent to which these countries belong, constitutes 41% of the global internet users, in spite of a mere 17% population penetration of the internet! (Source: InternetWorldStats

A different but relevant social challenge in the Information age will be the right deployment of human capital. As the need for knowledge workers grows, a vast part of the global workforce may still be untrained in using information systems. A critical task, here, will be to train and involve them in the information revolution.

4. Technological challenges Another daunting task will be to find and deploy cost effective, fast, accurate and smart technologies to store, secure, verify and share information. Technologists and entrepreneurs will have a tough time satisfying the on the go' information needs of Generation Y. Tiny storage devices with huge capacities and fast retrieval techniques, are what this Generation of the Information age would like to see in their pockets!

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