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Promises and Pitfalls of Technology

Politics and privacy, private-sector influence and big tech, state competition and conflict, author biography, how is technology changing the world, and how should the world change technology.

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Josephine Wolff; How Is Technology Changing the World, and How Should the World Change Technology?. Global Perspectives 1 February 2021; 2 (1): 27353. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2021.27353

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Technologies are becoming increasingly complicated and increasingly interconnected. Cars, airplanes, medical devices, financial transactions, and electricity systems all rely on more computer software than they ever have before, making them seem both harder to understand and, in some cases, harder to control. Government and corporate surveillance of individuals and information processing relies largely on digital technologies and artificial intelligence, and therefore involves less human-to-human contact than ever before and more opportunities for biases to be embedded and codified in our technological systems in ways we may not even be able to identify or recognize. Bioengineering advances are opening up new terrain for challenging philosophical, political, and economic questions regarding human-natural relations. Additionally, the management of these large and small devices and systems is increasingly done through the cloud, so that control over them is both very remote and removed from direct human or social control. The study of how to make technologies like artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things “explainable” has become its own area of research because it is so difficult to understand how they work or what is at fault when something goes wrong (Gunning and Aha 2019) .

This growing complexity makes it more difficult than ever—and more imperative than ever—for scholars to probe how technological advancements are altering life around the world in both positive and negative ways and what social, political, and legal tools are needed to help shape the development and design of technology in beneficial directions. This can seem like an impossible task in light of the rapid pace of technological change and the sense that its continued advancement is inevitable, but many countries around the world are only just beginning to take significant steps toward regulating computer technologies and are still in the process of radically rethinking the rules governing global data flows and exchange of technology across borders.

These are exciting times not just for technological development but also for technology policy—our technologies may be more advanced and complicated than ever but so, too, are our understandings of how they can best be leveraged, protected, and even constrained. The structures of technological systems as determined largely by government and institutional policies and those structures have tremendous implications for social organization and agency, ranging from open source, open systems that are highly distributed and decentralized, to those that are tightly controlled and closed, structured according to stricter and more hierarchical models. And just as our understanding of the governance of technology is developing in new and interesting ways, so, too, is our understanding of the social, cultural, environmental, and political dimensions of emerging technologies. We are realizing both the challenges and the importance of mapping out the full range of ways that technology is changing our society, what we want those changes to look like, and what tools we have to try to influence and guide those shifts.

Technology can be a source of tremendous optimism. It can help overcome some of the greatest challenges our society faces, including climate change, famine, and disease. For those who believe in the power of innovation and the promise of creative destruction to advance economic development and lead to better quality of life, technology is a vital economic driver (Schumpeter 1942) . But it can also be a tool of tremendous fear and oppression, embedding biases in automated decision-making processes and information-processing algorithms, exacerbating economic and social inequalities within and between countries to a staggering degree, or creating new weapons and avenues for attack unlike any we have had to face in the past. Scholars have even contended that the emergence of the term technology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries marked a shift from viewing individual pieces of machinery as a means to achieving political and social progress to the more dangerous, or hazardous, view that larger-scale, more complex technological systems were a semiautonomous form of progress in and of themselves (Marx 2010) . More recently, technologists have sharply criticized what they view as a wave of new Luddites, people intent on slowing the development of technology and turning back the clock on innovation as a means of mitigating the societal impacts of technological change (Marlowe 1970) .

At the heart of fights over new technologies and their resulting global changes are often two conflicting visions of technology: a fundamentally optimistic one that believes humans use it as a tool to achieve greater goals, and a fundamentally pessimistic one that holds that technological systems have reached a point beyond our control. Technology philosophers have argued that neither of these views is wholly accurate and that a purely optimistic or pessimistic view of technology is insufficient to capture the nuances and complexity of our relationship to technology (Oberdiek and Tiles 1995) . Understanding technology and how we can make better decisions about designing, deploying, and refining it requires capturing that nuance and complexity through in-depth analysis of the impacts of different technological advancements and the ways they have played out in all their complicated and controversial messiness across the world.

These impacts are often unpredictable as technologies are adopted in new contexts and come to be used in ways that sometimes diverge significantly from the use cases envisioned by their designers. The internet, designed to help transmit information between computer networks, became a crucial vehicle for commerce, introducing unexpected avenues for crime and financial fraud. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, designed to connect friends and families through sharing photographs and life updates, became focal points of election controversies and political influence. Cryptocurrencies, originally intended as a means of decentralized digital cash, have become a significant environmental hazard as more and more computing resources are devoted to mining these forms of virtual money. One of the crucial challenges in this area is therefore recognizing, documenting, and even anticipating some of these unexpected consequences and providing mechanisms to technologists for how to think through the impacts of their work, as well as possible other paths to different outcomes (Verbeek 2006) . And just as technological innovations can cause unexpected harm, they can also bring about extraordinary benefits—new vaccines and medicines to address global pandemics and save thousands of lives, new sources of energy that can drastically reduce emissions and help combat climate change, new modes of education that can reach people who would otherwise have no access to schooling. Regulating technology therefore requires a careful balance of mitigating risks without overly restricting potentially beneficial innovations.

Nations around the world have taken very different approaches to governing emerging technologies and have adopted a range of different technologies themselves in pursuit of more modern governance structures and processes (Braman 2009) . In Europe, the precautionary principle has guided much more anticipatory regulation aimed at addressing the risks presented by technologies even before they are fully realized. For instance, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation focuses on the responsibilities of data controllers and processors to provide individuals with access to their data and information about how that data is being used not just as a means of addressing existing security and privacy threats, such as data breaches, but also to protect against future developments and uses of that data for artificial intelligence and automated decision-making purposes. In Germany, Technische Überwachungsvereine, or TÜVs, perform regular tests and inspections of technological systems to assess and minimize risks over time, as the tech landscape evolves. In the United States, by contrast, there is much greater reliance on litigation and liability regimes to address safety and security failings after-the-fact. These different approaches reflect not just the different legal and regulatory mechanisms and philosophies of different nations but also the different ways those nations prioritize rapid development of the technology industry versus safety, security, and individual control. Typically, governance innovations move much more slowly than technological innovations, and regulations can lag years, or even decades, behind the technologies they aim to govern.

In addition to this varied set of national regulatory approaches, a variety of international and nongovernmental organizations also contribute to the process of developing standards, rules, and norms for new technologies, including the International Organization for Standardization­ and the International Telecommunication Union. These multilateral and NGO actors play an especially important role in trying to define appropriate boundaries for the use of new technologies by governments as instruments of control for the state.

At the same time that policymakers are under scrutiny both for their decisions about how to regulate technology as well as their decisions about how and when to adopt technologies like facial recognition themselves, technology firms and designers have also come under increasing criticism. Growing recognition that the design of technologies can have far-reaching social and political implications means that there is more pressure on technologists to take into consideration the consequences of their decisions early on in the design process (Vincenti 1993; Winner 1980) . The question of how technologists should incorporate these social dimensions into their design and development processes is an old one, and debate on these issues dates back to the 1970s, but it remains an urgent and often overlooked part of the puzzle because so many of the supposedly systematic mechanisms for assessing the impacts of new technologies in both the private and public sectors are primarily bureaucratic, symbolic processes rather than carrying any real weight or influence.

Technologists are often ill-equipped or unwilling to respond to the sorts of social problems that their creations have—often unwittingly—exacerbated, and instead point to governments and lawmakers to address those problems (Zuckerberg 2019) . But governments often have few incentives to engage in this area. This is because setting clear standards and rules for an ever-evolving technological landscape can be extremely challenging, because enforcement of those rules can be a significant undertaking requiring considerable expertise, and because the tech sector is a major source of jobs and revenue for many countries that may fear losing those benefits if they constrain companies too much. This indicates not just a need for clearer incentives and better policies for both private- and public-sector entities but also a need for new mechanisms whereby the technology development and design process can be influenced and assessed by people with a wider range of experiences and expertise. If we want technologies to be designed with an eye to their impacts, who is responsible for predicting, measuring, and mitigating those impacts throughout the design process? Involving policymakers in that process in a more meaningful way will also require training them to have the analytic and technical capacity to more fully engage with technologists and understand more fully the implications of their decisions.

At the same time that tech companies seem unwilling or unable to rein in their creations, many also fear they wield too much power, in some cases all but replacing governments and international organizations in their ability to make decisions that affect millions of people worldwide and control access to information, platforms, and audiences (Kilovaty 2020) . Regulators around the world have begun considering whether some of these companies have become so powerful that they violate the tenets of antitrust laws, but it can be difficult for governments to identify exactly what those violations are, especially in the context of an industry where the largest players often provide their customers with free services. And the platforms and services developed by tech companies are often wielded most powerfully and dangerously not directly by their private-sector creators and operators but instead by states themselves for widespread misinformation campaigns that serve political purposes (Nye 2018) .

Since the largest private entities in the tech sector operate in many countries, they are often better poised to implement global changes to the technological ecosystem than individual states or regulatory bodies, creating new challenges to existing governance structures and hierarchies. Just as it can be challenging to provide oversight for government use of technologies, so, too, oversight of the biggest tech companies, which have more resources, reach, and power than many nations, can prove to be a daunting task. The rise of network forms of organization and the growing gig economy have added to these challenges, making it even harder for regulators to fully address the breadth of these companies’ operations (Powell 1990) . The private-public partnerships that have emerged around energy, transportation, medical, and cyber technologies further complicate this picture, blurring the line between the public and private sectors and raising critical questions about the role of each in providing critical infrastructure, health care, and security. How can and should private tech companies operating in these different sectors be governed, and what types of influence do they exert over regulators? How feasible are different policy proposals aimed at technological innovation, and what potential unintended consequences might they have?

Conflict between countries has also spilled over significantly into the private sector in recent years, most notably in the case of tensions between the United States and China over which technologies developed in each country will be permitted by the other and which will be purchased by other customers, outside those two countries. Countries competing to develop the best technology is not a new phenomenon, but the current conflicts have major international ramifications and will influence the infrastructure that is installed and used around the world for years to come. Untangling the different factors that feed into these tussles as well as whom they benefit and whom they leave at a disadvantage is crucial for understanding how governments can most effectively foster technological innovation and invention domestically as well as the global consequences of those efforts. As much of the world is forced to choose between buying technology from the United States or from China, how should we understand the long-term impacts of those choices and the options available to people in countries without robust domestic tech industries? Does the global spread of technologies help fuel further innovation in countries with smaller tech markets, or does it reinforce the dominance of the states that are already most prominent in this sector? How can research universities maintain global collaborations and research communities in light of these national competitions, and what role does government research and development spending play in fostering innovation within its own borders and worldwide? How should intellectual property protections evolve to meet the demands of the technology industry, and how can those protections be enforced globally?

These conflicts between countries sometimes appear to challenge the feasibility of truly global technologies and networks that operate across all countries through standardized protocols and design features. Organizations like the International Organization for Standardization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and many others have tried to harmonize these policies and protocols across different countries for years, but have met with limited success when it comes to resolving the issues of greatest tension and disagreement among nations. For technology to operate in a global environment, there is a need for a much greater degree of coordination among countries and the development of common standards and norms, but governments continue to struggle to agree not just on those norms themselves but even the appropriate venue and processes for developing them. Without greater global cooperation, is it possible to maintain a global network like the internet or to promote the spread of new technologies around the world to address challenges of sustainability? What might help incentivize that cooperation moving forward, and what could new structures and process for governance of global technologies look like? Why has the tech industry’s self-regulation culture persisted? Do the same traditional drivers for public policy, such as politics of harmonization and path dependency in policy-making, still sufficiently explain policy outcomes in this space? As new technologies and their applications spread across the globe in uneven ways, how and when do they create forces of change from unexpected places?

These are some of the questions that we hope to address in the Technology and Global Change section through articles that tackle new dimensions of the global landscape of designing, developing, deploying, and assessing new technologies to address major challenges the world faces. Understanding these processes requires synthesizing knowledge from a range of different fields, including sociology, political science, economics, and history, as well as technical fields such as engineering, climate science, and computer science. A crucial part of understanding how technology has created global change and, in turn, how global changes have influenced the development of new technologies is understanding the technologies themselves in all their richness and complexity—how they work, the limits of what they can do, what they were designed to do, how they are actually used. Just as technologies themselves are becoming more complicated, so are their embeddings and relationships to the larger social, political, and legal contexts in which they exist. Scholars across all disciplines are encouraged to join us in untangling those complexities.

Josephine Wolff is an associate professor of cybersecurity policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Her book You’ll See This Message When It Is Too Late: The Legal and Economic Aftermath of Cybersecurity Breaches was published by MIT Press in 2018.

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Feb 13, 2023

200-500 Word Example Essays about Technology

Got an essay assignment about technology check out these examples to inspire you.

Technology is a rapidly evolving field that has completely changed the way we live, work, and interact with one another. Technology has profoundly impacted our daily lives, from how we communicate with friends and family to how we access information and complete tasks. As a result, it's no surprise that technology is a popular topic for students writing essays.

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This blog post aims to provide readers with various example essays on technology, all generated by Jenni.ai. These essays will be a valuable resource for students looking for inspiration or guidance as they work on their essays. By reading through these example essays, students can better understand how technology can be approached and discussed in an essay.

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The Impact of Technology on Society and Culture

Introduction:.

Technology has become an integral part of our daily lives and has dramatically impacted how we interact, communicate, and carry out various activities. Technological advancements have brought positive and negative changes to society and culture. In this article, we will explore the impact of technology on society and culture and how it has influenced different aspects of our lives.

Positive impact on communication:

Technology has dramatically improved communication and made it easier for people to connect from anywhere in the world. Social media platforms, instant messaging, and video conferencing have brought people closer, bridging geographical distances and cultural differences. This has made it easier for people to share information, exchange ideas, and collaborate on projects.

Positive impact on education:

Students and instructors now have access to a multitude of knowledge and resources because of the effect of technology on education . Students may now study at their speed and from any location thanks to online learning platforms, educational applications, and digital textbooks.

Negative impact on critical thinking and creativity:

Technological advancements have resulted in a reduction in critical thinking and creativity. With so much information at our fingertips, individuals have become more passive in their learning, relying on the internet for solutions rather than logic and inventiveness. As a result, independent thinking and problem-solving abilities have declined.

Positive impact on entertainment:

Technology has transformed how we access and consume entertainment. People may now access a wide range of entertainment alternatives from the comfort of their own homes thanks to streaming services, gaming platforms, and online content makers. The entertainment business has entered a new age of creativity and invention as a result of this.

Negative impact on attention span:

However, the continual bombardment of information and technological stimulation has also reduced attention span and the capacity to focus. People are easily distracted and need help focusing on a single activity for a long time. This has hampered productivity and the ability to accomplish duties.

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies has been one of the most significant technological developments of the past several decades. These cutting-edge technologies have the potential to alter several sectors of society, including commerce, industry, healthcare, and entertainment. 

As with any new and quickly advancing technology, AI and ML ethics must be carefully studied. The usage of these technologies presents significant concerns around privacy, accountability, and command. As the use of AI and ML grows more ubiquitous, we must assess their possible influence on society and investigate the ethical issues that must be taken into account as these technologies continue to develop.

What are Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning?

Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence in machines designed to think and act like humans. Machine learning is a subfield of AI that enables computers to learn from data and improve their performance over time without being explicitly programmed.

The impact of AI and ML on Society

The use of AI and ML in various industries, such as healthcare, finance, and retail, has brought many benefits. For example, AI-powered medical diagnosis systems can identify diseases faster and more accurately than human doctors. However, there are also concerns about job displacement and the potential for AI to perpetuate societal biases.

The Ethical Considerations of AI and ML

A. Bias in AI algorithms

One of the critical ethical concerns about AI and ML is the potential for algorithms to perpetuate existing biases. This can occur if the data used to train these algorithms reflects the preferences of the people who created it. As a result, AI systems can perpetuate these biases and discriminate against certain groups of people.

B. Responsibility for AI-generated decisions

Another ethical concern is the responsibility for decisions made by AI systems. For example, who is responsible for the damage if a self-driving car causes an accident? The manufacturer of the vehicle, the software developer, or the AI algorithm itself?

C. The potential for misuse of AI and ML

AI and ML can also be used for malicious purposes, such as cyberattacks and misinformation. The need for more regulation and oversight in developing and using these technologies makes it difficult to prevent misuse.

The developments in AI and ML have given numerous benefits to humanity, but they also present significant ethical concerns that must be addressed. We must assess the repercussions of new technologies on society, implement methods to limit the associated dangers, and guarantee that they are utilized for the greater good. As AI and ML continue to play an ever-increasing role in our daily lives, we must engage in an open and frank discussion regarding their ethics.

The Future of Work And Automation

Rapid technological breakthroughs in recent years have brought about considerable changes in our way of life and work. Concerns regarding the influence of artificial intelligence and machine learning on the future of work and employment have increased alongside the development of these technologies. This article will examine the possible advantages and disadvantages of automation and its influence on the labor market, employees, and the economy.

The Advantages of Automation

Automation in the workplace offers various benefits, including higher efficiency and production, fewer mistakes, and enhanced precision. Automated processes may accomplish repetitive jobs quickly and precisely, allowing employees to concentrate on more complex and creative activities. Additionally, automation may save organizations money since it removes the need to pay for labor and minimizes the danger of workplace accidents.

The Potential Disadvantages of Automation

However, automation has significant disadvantages, including job loss and income stagnation. As robots and computers replace human labor in particular industries, there is a danger that many workers may lose their jobs, resulting in higher unemployment and more significant economic disparity. Moreover, if automation is not adequately regulated and managed, it might lead to stagnant wages and a deterioration in employees' standard of life.

The Future of Work and Automation

Despite these difficulties, automation will likely influence how labor is done. As a result, firms, employees, and governments must take early measures to solve possible issues and reap the rewards of automation. This might entail funding worker retraining programs, enhancing education and skill development, and implementing regulations that support equality and justice at work.

IV. The Need for Ethical Considerations

We must consider the ethical ramifications of automation and its effects on society as technology develops. The impact on employees and their rights, possible hazards to privacy and security, and the duty of corporations and governments to ensure that automation is utilized responsibly and ethically are all factors to be taken into account.

Conclusion:

To summarise, the future of employment and automation will most certainly be defined by a complex interaction of technological advances, economic trends, and cultural ideals. All stakeholders must work together to handle the problems and possibilities presented by automation and ensure that technology is employed to benefit society as a whole.

The Role of Technology in Education

Introduction.

Nearly every part of our lives has been transformed by technology, and education is no different. Today's students have greater access to knowledge, opportunities, and resources than ever before, and technology is becoming a more significant part of their educational experience. Technology is transforming how we think about education and creating new opportunities for learners of all ages, from online courses and virtual classrooms to instructional applications and augmented reality.

Technology's Benefits for Education

The capacity to tailor learning is one of technology's most significant benefits in education. Students may customize their education to meet their unique needs and interests since they can access online information and tools. 

For instance, people can enroll in online classes on topics they are interested in, get tailored feedback on their work, and engage in virtual discussions with peers and subject matter experts worldwide. As a result, pupils are better able to acquire and develop the abilities and information necessary for success.

Challenges and Concerns

Despite the numerous advantages of technology in education, there are also obstacles and considerations to consider. One issue is the growing reliance on technology and the possibility that pupils would become overly dependent on it. This might result in a lack of critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, as students may become passive learners who only follow instructions and rely on technology to complete their assignments.

Another obstacle is the digital divide between those who have access to technology and those who do not. This division can exacerbate the achievement gap between pupils and produce uneven educational and professional growth chances. To reduce these consequences, all students must have access to the technology and resources necessary for success.

In conclusion, technology is rapidly becoming an integral part of the classroom experience and has the potential to alter the way we learn radically. 

Technology can help students flourish and realize their full potential by giving them access to individualized instruction, tools, and opportunities. While the benefits of technology in the classroom are undeniable, it's crucial to be mindful of the risks and take precautions to guarantee that all kids have access to the tools they need to thrive.

The Influence of Technology On Personal Relationships And Communication 

Technological advancements have profoundly altered how individuals connect and exchange information. It has changed the world in many ways in only a few decades. Because of the rise of the internet and various social media sites, maintaining relationships with people from all walks of life is now simpler than ever. 

However, concerns about how these developments may affect interpersonal connections and dialogue are inevitable in an era of rapid technological growth. In this piece, we'll discuss how the prevalence of digital media has altered our interpersonal connections and the language we use to express ourselves.

Direct Effect on Direct Interaction:

The disruption of face-to-face communication is a particularly stark example of how technology has impacted human connections. The quality of interpersonal connections has suffered due to people's growing preference for digital over human communication. Technology has been demonstrated to reduce the usage of nonverbal signs such as facial expressions, tone of voice, and other indicators of emotional investment in the connection.

Positive Impact on Long-Distance Relationships:

Yet there are positives to be found as well. Long-distance relationships have also benefited from technological advancements. The development of technologies such as video conferencing, instant messaging, and social media has made it possible for individuals to keep in touch with distant loved ones. It has become simpler for individuals to stay in touch and feel connected despite geographical distance.

The Effects of Social Media on Personal Connections:

The widespread use of social media has had far-reaching consequences, especially on the quality of interpersonal interactions. Social media has positive and harmful effects on relationships since it allows people to keep in touch and share life's milestones.

Unfortunately, social media has made it all too easy to compare oneself to others, which may lead to emotions of jealousy and a general decline in confidence. Furthermore, social media might cause people to have inflated expectations of themselves and their relationships.

A Personal Perspective on the Intersection of Technology and Romance

Technological advancements have also altered physical touch and closeness. Virtual reality and other technologies have allowed people to feel physical contact and familiarity in a digital setting. This might be a promising breakthrough, but it has some potential downsides. 

Experts are concerned that people's growing dependence on technology for intimacy may lead to less time spent communicating face-to-face and less emphasis on physical contact, both of which are important for maintaining good relationships.

In conclusion, technological advancements have significantly affected the quality of interpersonal connections and the exchange of information. Even though technology has made it simpler to maintain personal relationships, it has chilled interpersonal interactions between people. 

Keeping tabs on how technology is changing our lives and making adjustments as necessary is essential as we move forward. Boundaries and prioritizing in-person conversation and physical touch in close relationships may help reduce the harm it causes.

The Security and Privacy Implications of Increased Technology Use and Data Collection

The fast development of technology over the past few decades has made its way into every aspect of our life. Technology has improved many facets of our life, from communication to commerce. However, significant privacy and security problems have emerged due to the broad adoption of technology. In this essay, we'll look at how the widespread use of technological solutions and the subsequent explosion in collected data affects our right to privacy and security.

Data Mining and Privacy Concerns

Risk of Cyber Attacks and Data Loss

The Widespread Use of Encryption and Other Safety Mechanisms

The Privacy and Security of the Future in a Globalized Information Age

Obtaining and Using Individual Information

The acquisition and use of private information is a significant cause for privacy alarm in the digital age. Data about their customers' online habits, interests, and personal information is a valuable commodity for many internet firms. Besides tailored advertising, this information may be used for other, less desirable things like identity theft or cyber assaults.

Moreover, many individuals need to be made aware of what data is being gathered from them or how it is being utilized because of the lack of transparency around gathering personal information. Privacy and data security have become increasingly contentious as a result.

Data breaches and other forms of cyber-attack pose a severe risk.

The risk of cyber assaults and data breaches is another big issue of worry. More people are using more devices, which means more opportunities for cybercriminals to steal private information like credit card numbers and other identifying data. This may cause monetary damages and harm one's reputation or identity.

Many high-profile data breaches have occurred in recent years, exposing the personal information of millions of individuals and raising serious concerns about the safety of this information. Companies and governments have responded to this problem by adopting new security methods like encryption and multi-factor authentication.

Many businesses now use encryption and other security measures to protect themselves from cybercriminals and data thieves. Encryption keeps sensitive information hidden by encoding it so that only those possessing the corresponding key can decipher it. This prevents private information like bank account numbers or social security numbers from falling into the wrong hands.

Firewalls, virus scanners, and two-factor authentication are all additional security precautions that may be used with encryption. While these safeguards do much to stave against cyber assaults, they are not entirely impregnable, and data breaches are still possible.

The Future of Privacy and Security in a Technologically Advanced World

There's little doubt that concerns about privacy and security will persist even as technology improves. There must be strict safeguards to secure people's private information as more and more of it is transferred and kept digitally. To achieve this goal, it may be necessary to implement novel technologies and heightened levels of protection and to revise the rules and regulations regulating the collection and storage of private information.

Individuals and businesses are understandably concerned about the security and privacy consequences of widespread technological use and data collecting. There are numerous obstacles to overcome in a society where technology plays an increasingly important role, from acquiring and using personal data to the risk of cyber-attacks and data breaches. Companies and governments must keep spending money on security measures and working to educate people about the significance of privacy and security if personal data is to remain safe.

In conclusion, technology has profoundly impacted virtually every aspect of our lives, including society and culture, ethics, work, education, personal relationships, and security and privacy. The rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning has presented new ethical considerations, while automation is transforming the future of work. 

In education, technology has revolutionized the way we learn and access information. At the same time, our dependence on technology has brought new challenges in terms of personal relationships, communication, security, and privacy.

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Science, technology and innovation in a 21st century context

• Published: 27 August 2011
• Volume 44 , pages 209–213, ( 2011 )

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• John H. Marburger III 1  

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Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

This editorial essay was prepared by John H. “Jack” Marburger for a workshop on the “science of science and innovation policy” held in 2009 that was the basis for this special issue. It is published posthumously .

Linking the words “science,” “technology,” and “innovation,” may suggest that we know more about how these activities are related than we really do. This very common linkage implicitly conveys a linear progression from scientific research to technology creation to innovative products. More nuanced pictures of these complex activities break them down into components that interact with each other in a multi-dimensional socio-technological-economic network. A few examples will help to make this clear.

Science has always functioned on two levels that we may describe as curiosity-driven and need-driven, and they interact in sometimes surprising ways. Galileo’s telescope, the paradigmatic instrument of discovery in pure science, emerged from an entirely pragmatic tradition of lens-making for eye-glasses. And we should keep in mind that the industrial revolution gave more to science than it received, at least until the last half of the nineteenth century when the sciences of chemistry and electricity began to produce serious economic payoffs. The flowering of science during the era, we call the enlightenment owed much to its links with crafts and industry, but as it gained momentum science created its own need for practical improvements. After all, the frontiers of science are defined by the capabilities of instrumentation, that is, of technology. The needs of pure science are a huge but poorly understood stimulus for technologies that have the capacity to be disruptive precisely because these needs do not arise from the marketplace. The innovators who built the World Wide Web on the foundation of the Internet were particle physicists at CERN, struggling to satisfy their unique need to share complex information. Others soon discovered “needs” of which they had been unaware that could be satisfied by this innovation, and from that point the Web transformed the Internet from a tool for the technological elite into a broad platform for a new kind of economy.

Necessity is said to be the mother of invention, but in all human societies, “necessity” is a mix of culturally conditioned perceptions and the actual physical necessities of life. The concept of need, of what is wanted, is the ultimate driver of markets and an essential dimension of innovation. And as the example of the World Wide Web shows, need is very difficult to identify before it reveals itself in a mass movement. Why did I not know I needed a cell phone before nearly everyone else had one? Because until many others had one I did not, in fact, need one. Innovation has this chicken-and-egg quality that makes it extremely hard to analyze. We all know of visionaries who conceive of a society totally transformed by their invention and who are bitter that the world has not embraced their idea. Sometimes we think of them as crackpots, or simply unrealistic about what it takes to change the world. We practical people necessarily view the world through the filter of what exists, and fail to anticipate disruptive change. Nearly always we are surprised by the rapid acceptance of a transformative idea. If we truly want to encourage innovation through government policies, we are going to have to come to grips with this deep unpredictability of the mass acceptance of a new concept. Works analyzing this phenomenon are widely popular under titles like “ The Tipping Point ” by Gladwell ( 2000 ) or more recently the book by Taleb ( 2007 ) called The Black Swan , among others.

What causes innovations to be adopted and integrated into economies depends on their ability to satisfy some perceived need by consumers, and that perception may be an artifact of marketing, or fashion, or cultural inertia, or ignorance. Some of the largest and most profitable industries in the developed world—entertainment, automobiles, clothing and fashion accessories, health products, children’s toys, grownups’ toys!—depend on perceptions of need that go far beyond the utilitarian and are notoriously difficult to predict. And yet these industries clearly depend on sophisticated and rapidly advancing technologies to compete in the marketplace. Of course, they do not depend only upon technology. Technologies are part of the environment for innovation, or in a popular and very appropriate metaphor—part of the innovation ecology .

This complexity of innovation and its ecology is conveyed in Chapter One of a currently popular best-seller in the United States called Innovation Nation by the American innovation guru, Kao ( 2007 ), formerly on the faculty of the Harvard Business School:

“I define it [innovation],” writes Kao, “as the ability of individuals, companies, and entire nations to continuously create their desired future. Innovation depends on harvesting knowledge from a range of disciplines besides science and technology, among them design, social science, and the arts. And it is exemplified by more than just products; services, experiences, and processes can be innovative as well. The work of entrepreneurs, scientists, and software geeks alike contributes to innovation. It is also about the middlemen who know how to realize value from ideas. Innovation flows from shifts in mind-set that can generate new business models, recognize new opportunities, and weave innovations throughout the fabric of society. It is about new ways of doing and seeing things as much as it is about the breakthrough idea.” (Kao 2007 , p. 19).

This is not your standard government-type definition. Gurus, of course, do not have to worry about leading indicators and predictive measures of policy success. Nevertheless, some policy guidance can be drawn from this high level “definition,” and I will do so later.

The first point, then, is that the structural aspects of “science, technology, and innovation” are imperfectly defined, complex, and poorly understood. There is still much work to do to identify measures, develop models, and test them against actual experience before we can say we really know what it takes to foster innovation. The second point I want to make is about the temporal aspects: all three of these complex activities are changing with time. Science, of course, always changes through the accumulation of knowledge, but it also changes through revolutions in its theoretical structure, through its ever-improving technology, and through its evolving sociology. The technology and sociology of science are currently impacted by a rapidly changing information technology. Technology today flows increasingly from research laboratories but the influence of technology on both science and innovation depends strongly on its commercial adoption, that is, on market forces. Commercial scale manufacturing drives down the costs of technology so it can be exploited in an ever-broadening range of applications. The mass market for precision electro-mechanical devices like cameras, printers, and disk drives is the basis for new scientific instrumentation and also for further generations of products that integrate hundreds of existing components in new devices and business models like the Apple iPod and video games, not to mention improvements in old products like cars and telephones. Innovation is changing too as it expands its scope beyond individual products to include all or parts of systems such as supply chains and inventory control, as in the Wal-Mart phenomenon. Apple’s iPod does not stand alone; it is integrated with iTunes software and novel arrangements with media providers.

With one exception, however, technology changes more slowly than it appears because we encounter basic technology platforms in a wide variety of relatively short-lived products. Technology is like a language that innovators use to express concepts in the form of products, and business models that serve (and sometimes create) a variety of needs, some of which fluctuate with fashion. The exception to the illusion of rapid technology change is the pace of information technology, which is no illusion. It has fulfilled Moore’s Law for more than half a century, and it is a remarkable historical anomaly arising from the systematic exploitation of the understanding of the behavior of microscopic matter following the discovery of quantum mechanics. The pace would be much less without a continually evolving market for the succession of smaller, higher capacity products. It is not at all clear that the market demand will continue to support the increasingly expensive investment in fabrication equipment for each new step up the exponential curve of Moore’s Law. The science is probably available to allow many more capacity doublings if markets can sustain them. Let me digress briefly on this point.

Many science commentators have described the twentieth century as the century of physics and the twenty-first as the century of biology. We now know that is misleading. It is true that our struggle to understand the ultimate constituents of matter has now encompassed (apparently) everything of human scale and relevance, and that the universe of biological phenomena now lies open for systematic investigation and dramatic applications in health, agriculture, and energy production. But there are two additional frontiers of physical science, one already highly productive, the other very intriguing. The first is the frontier of complexity , where physics, chemistry, materials science, biology, and mathematics all come together. This is where nanotechnology and biotechnology reside. These are huge fields that form the core of basic science policy in most developed nations. The basic science of the twenty-first century is neither biology nor physics, but an interdisciplinary mix of these and other traditional fields. Continued development of this domain contributes to information technology and much else. I mentioned two frontiers. The other physical science frontier borders the nearly unexploited domain of quantum coherence phenomena . It is a very large domain and potentially a source of entirely new platform technologies not unlike microelectronics. To say more about this would take me too far from our topic. The point is that nature has many undeveloped physical phenomena to enrich the ecology of innovation and keep us marching along the curve of Moore’s Law if we can afford to do so.

I worry about the psychological impact of the rapid advance of information technology. I believe it has created unrealistic expectations about all technologies and has encouraged a casual attitude among policy makers toward the capability of science and technology to deliver solutions to difficult social problems. This is certainly true of what may be the greatest technical challenge of all time—the delivery of energy to large developed and developing populations without adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The challenge of sustainable energy technology is much more difficult than many people currently seem to appreciate. I am afraid that time will make this clear.

Structural complexities and the intrinsic dynamism of science and technology pose challenges to policy makers, but they seem almost manageable compared with the challenges posed by extrinsic forces. Among these are globalization and the impact of global economic development on the environment. The latter, expressed quite generally through the concept of “sustainability” is likely to be a component of much twenty-first century innovation policy. Measures of development, competitiveness, and innovation need to include sustainability dimensions to be realistic over the long run. Development policies that destroy economically important environmental systems, contribute to harmful global change, and undermine the natural resource basis of the economy are bad policies. Sustainability is now an international issue because the scale of development and the globalization of economies have environmental and natural resource implications that transcend national borders.

From the policy point of view, globalization is a not a new phenomenon. Science has been globalized for centuries, and we ought to be studying it more closely as a model for effective responses to the globalization of our economies. What is striking about science is the strong imperative to share ideas through every conceivable channel to the widest possible audience. If you had to name one chief characteristic of science, it would be empiricism. If you had to name two, the other would be open communication of data and ideas. The power of open communication in science cannot be overestimated. It has established, uniquely among human endeavors, an absolute global standard. And it effectively recruits talent from every part of the globe to labor at the science frontiers. The result has been an extraordinary legacy of understanding of the phenomena that shape our existence. Science is the ultimate example of an open innovation system.

Science practice has received much attention from philosophers, social scientists, and historians during the past half-century, and some of what has been learned holds valuable lessons for policy makers. It is fascinating to me how quickly countries that provide avenues to advanced education are able to participate in world science. The barriers to a small but productive scientific activity appear to be quite low and whether or not a country participates in science appears to be discretionary. A small scientific establishment, however, will not have significant direct economic impact. Its value at early stages of development is indirect, bringing higher performance standards, international recognition, and peer role models for a wider population. A science program of any size is also a link to the rich intellectual resources of the world scientific community. The indirect benefit of scientific research to a developing country far exceeds its direct benefit, and policy needs to recognize this. It is counterproductive to base support for science in such countries on a hoped-for direct economic stimulus.

Keeping in mind that the innovation ecology includes far more than science and technology, it should be obvious that within a small national economy innovation can thrive on a very small indigenous science and technology base. But innovators, like scientists, do require access to technical information and ideas. Consequently, policies favorable to innovation will create access to education and encourage free communication with the world technical community. Anything that encourages awareness of the marketplace and all its actors on every scale will encourage innovation.

This brings me back to John Kao’s definition of innovation. His vision of “the ability of individuals, companies, and entire nations to continuously create their desired future” implies conditions that create that ability, including most importantly educational opportunity (Kao 2007 , p. 19). The notion that “innovation depends on harvesting knowledge from a range of disciplines besides science and technology” implies that innovators must know enough to recognize useful knowledge when they see it, and that they have access to knowledge sources across a spectrum that ranges from news media and the Internet to technical and trade conferences (2007, p. 19). If innovation truly “flows from shifts in mind-set that can generate new business models, recognize new opportunities, and weave innovations throughout the fabric of society,” then the fabric of society must be somewhat loose-knit to accommodate the new ideas (2007, p. 19). Innovation is about risk and change, and deep forces in every society resist both of these. A striking feature of the US innovation ecology is the positive attitude toward failure, an attitude that encourages risk-taking and entrepreneurship.

All this gives us some insight into what policies we need to encourage innovation. Innovation policy is broader than science and technology policy, but the latter must be consistent with the former to produce a healthy innovation ecology. Innovation requires a predictable social structure, an open marketplace, and a business culture amenable to risk and change. It certainly requires an educational infrastructure that produces people with a global awareness and sufficient technical literacy to harvest the fruits of current technology. What innovation does not require is the creation by governments of a system that defines, regulates, or even rewards innovation except through the marketplace or in response to evident success. Some regulation of new products and new ideas is required to protect public health and environmental quality, but innovation needs lots of freedom. Innovative ideas that do not work out should be allowed to die so the innovation community can learn from the experience and replace the failed attempt with something better.

Do we understand innovation well enough to develop policy for it? If the policy addresses very general infrastructure issues such as education, economic, and political stability and the like, the answer is perhaps. If we want to measure the impact of specific programs on innovation, the answer is no. Studies of innovation are at an early stage where anecdotal information and case studies, similar to John Kao’s book—or the books on Business Week’s top ten list of innovation titles—are probably the most useful tools for policy makers.

I have been urging increased attention to what I call the science of science policy —the systematic quantitative study of the subset of our economy called science and technology—including the construction and validation of micro- and macro-economic models for S&T activity. Innovators themselves, and those who finance them, need to identify their needs and the impediments they face. Eventually, we may learn enough to create reliable indicators by which we can judge the health of our innovation ecosystems. The goal is well worth the sustained effort that will be required to achieve it.

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Kao, J. (2007). Innovation nation: How America is losing its innovation edge, why it matters, and what we can do to get it back . New York: Free Press.

Taleb, N. N. (2007). The black swan: The impact of the highly improbable . New York: Random House.

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Marburger, J.H. Science, technology and innovation in a 21st century context. Policy Sci 44 , 209–213 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-011-9137-3

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Published : 27 August 2011

Issue Date : September 2011

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-011-9137-3

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Technology over the long run: zoom out to see how dramatically the world can change within a lifetime

It is easy to underestimate how much the world can change within a lifetime. considering how dramatically the world has changed can help us see how different the world could be in a few years or decades..

Technology can change the world in ways that are unimaginable until they happen. Switching on an electric light would have been unimaginable for our medieval ancestors. In their childhood, our grandparents would have struggled to imagine a world connected by smartphones and the Internet.

Similarly, it is hard for us to imagine the arrival of all those technologies that will fundamentally change the world we are used to.

We can remind ourselves that our own future might look very different from the world today by looking back at how rapidly technology has changed our world in the past. That’s what this article is about.

One insight I take away from this long-term perspective is how unusual our time is. Technological change was extremely slow in the past – the technologies that our ancestors got used to in their childhood were still central to their lives in their old age. In stark contrast to those days, we live in a time of extraordinarily fast technological change. For recent generations, it was common for technologies that were unimaginable in their youth to become common later in life.

The long-run perspective on technological change

The big visualization offers a long-term perspective on the history of technology. 1

The timeline begins at the center of the spiral. The first use of stone tools, 3.4 million years ago, marks the beginning of this history of technology. 2 Each turn of the spiral represents 200,000 years of history. It took 2.4 million years – 12 turns of the spiral – for our ancestors to control fire and use it for cooking. 3

To be able to visualize the inventions in the more recent past – the last 12,000 years – I had to unroll the spiral. I needed more space to be able to show when agriculture, writing, and the wheel were invented. During this period, technological change was faster, but it was still relatively slow: several thousand years passed between each of these three inventions.

From 1800 onwards, I stretched out the timeline even further to show the many major inventions that rapidly followed one after the other.

The long-term perspective that this chart provides makes it clear just how unusually fast technological change is in our time.

You can use this visualization to see how technology developed in particular domains. Follow, for example, the history of communication: from writing to paper, to the printing press, to the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, all the way to the Internet and smartphones.

Or follow the rapid development of human flight. In 1903, the Wright brothers took the first flight in human history (they were in the air for less than a minute), and just 66 years later, we landed on the moon. Many people saw both within their lifetimes: the first plane and the moon landing.

This large visualization also highlights the wide range of technology’s impact on our lives. It includes extraordinarily beneficial innovations, such as the vaccine that allowed humanity to eradicate smallpox , and it includes terrible innovations, like the nuclear bombs that endanger the lives of all of us .

What will the next decades bring?

The red timeline reaches up to the present and then continues in green into the future. Many children born today, even without further increases in life expectancy, will live well into the 22nd century.

New vaccines, progress in clean, low-carbon energy, better cancer treatments – a range of future innovations could very much improve our living conditions and the environment around us. But, as I argue in a series of articles , there is one technology that could even more profoundly change our world: artificial intelligence (AI).

One reason why artificial intelligence is such an important innovation is that intelligence is the main driver of innovation itself. This fast-paced technological change could speed up even more if it’s driven not only by humanity’s intelligence but also by artificial intelligence. If this happens, the change currently stretched out over decades might happen within a very brief time span of just a year. Possibly even faster. 4

I think AI technology could have a fundamentally transformative impact on our world. In many ways, it is already changing our world, as I documented in this companion article . As this technology becomes more capable in the years and decades to come, it can give immense power to those who control it (and it poses the risk that it could escape our control entirely).

Such systems might seem hard to imagine today, but AI technology is advancing quickly. Many AI experts believe there is a real chance that human-level artificial intelligence will be developed within the next decades, as I documented in this article .

Technology will continue to change the world – we should all make sure that it changes it for the better

What is familiar to us today – photography, the radio, antibiotics, the Internet, or the International Space Station circling our planet – was unimaginable to our ancestors just a few generations ago. If your great-great-great grandparents could spend a week with you, they would be blown away by your everyday life.

What I take away from this history is that I will likely see technologies in my lifetime that appear unimaginable to me today.

In addition to this trend towards increasingly rapid innovation, there is a second long-run trend. Technology has become increasingly powerful. While our ancestors wielded stone tools, we are building globe-spanning AI systems and technologies that can edit our genes.

Because of the immense power that technology gives those who control it, there is little that is as important as the question of which technologies get developed during our lifetimes. Therefore, I think it is a mistake to leave the question about the future of technology to the technologists. Which technologies are controlled by whom is one of the most important political questions of our time because of the enormous power these technologies convey to those who control them.

We all should strive to gain the knowledge we need to contribute to an intelligent debate about the world we want to live in. To a large part, this means gaining knowledge and wisdom on the question of which technologies we want.

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank my colleagues Hannah Ritchie, Bastian Herre, Natasha Ahuja, Edouard Mathieu, Daniel Bachler, Charlie Giattino, and Pablo Rosado for their helpful comments on drafts of this essay and the visualization. Thanks also to Lizka Vaintrob and Ben Clifford for the conversation that initiated this visualization.

Appendix: About the choice of visualization in this article

The recent speed of technological change makes it difficult to picture the history of technology in one visualization. When you visualize this development on a linear timeline, then most of the timeline is almost empty, while all the action is crammed into the right corner:

In my large visualization here, I tried to avoid this problem and instead show the long history of technology in a way that lets you see when each technological breakthrough happened and how, within the last millennia, there was a continuous acceleration of technological change.

The recent speed of technological change makes it difficult to picture the history of technology in one visualization. In the appendix, I show how this would look if it were linear.

It is, of course, difficult to assess when exactly the first stone tools were used.

The research by McPherron et al. (2010) suggested that it was at least 3.39 million years ago. This is based on two fossilized bones found in Dikika in Ethiopia, which showed “stone-tool cut marks for flesh removal and percussion marks for marrow access”. These marks were interpreted as being caused by meat consumption and provide the first evidence that one of our ancestors, Australopithecus afarensis, used stone tools.

The research by Harmand et al. (2015) provided evidence for stone tool use in today’s Kenya 3.3 million years ago.

References:

McPherron et al. (2010) – Evidence for stone-tool-assisted consumption of animal tissues before 3.39 million years ago at Dikika, Ethiopia . Published in Nature.

Harmand et al. (2015) – 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya . Published in Nature.

Evidence for controlled fire use approximately 1 million years ago is provided by Berna et al. (2012) Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa , published in PNAS.

The authors write: “The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question of when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.”

This is what authors like Holden Karnofsky called ‘Process for Automating Scientific and Technological Advancement’ or PASTA. Some recent developments go in this direction: DeepMind’s AlphaFold helped to make progress on one of the large problems in biology, and they have also developed an AI system that finds new algorithms that are relevant to building a more powerful AI.

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212 Innovation Ideas to Write about & Innovation Research Topics

🏆 best essay topics on innovation, ✍️ innovation essay topics for college, 👍 good innovation research topics & essay examples, 🌶️ hot innovation ideas to write about, 📌 easy innovation essay topics, 🎓 most interesting innovation research titles, ❓ research questions about innovation.

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• Tesla Inc.’s Design for Agility and Innovation The paper examines fundamental problems impacting Tesla Inc’s effectiveness, including contemporary trends in organizational design, and effective corporate structure.
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• Food Innovation: Ayran Yogurt in the Scandinavian Market This study researches the suitability of Ayran yogurt product and how to introduce it as a healthy alternative to soft drinks in the Scandinavian market.
• IBM Company’s Leadership and Innovation Management IBM through the newly appointed CEO took the initiative of making the company employees realize the importance of treating customers as kings.
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• Innovation Aspects at 3M Company The goal of the 3M company is to retain reputation as a highly innovative and forward-oriented manufacturer that focuses on new products that have impact on the market.
• Innovation in Organizations: Ryan Air This essay will highlight how Ryan Air has been able to come up with creative innovations, execute them, and therefore benefit from them.
• Innovation and Technology Cycles in Organizations The popularity of technology in manufacturing has led to many organizations relying almost entirely on it for all their operations.
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• LEGO: Innovation of Business Strategy LEGO can re-establish its leading position by implementing a reliable and innovative business strategy and critical changes based on the analyzed weaknesses and issues.
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• Evaluation Approach for Improving Education, Training, and Innovation Development in children’s learning is a priority. This paper analyzes the different approaches to teaching methods and the key features of each.
• Internet as a Revolutionary Innovation One of the major discoveries is the Internet, which over 50% of the global population uses on daily basis. The microwave is another technological innovation.
• Proposal for Sustainable Innovation Strategies Proposal for sustainable innovation strategies’ research question seeks to answer how the government can enhance sustainable innovation strategies.
• Frito-Lay’s Manufacturing Facility and Innovations Frito-Lay’s approach to solving the problem of introducing new equipment is thorough training of personnel to ensure the preparedness to function in current conditions.
• Biomimicry: Innovations Inspired by Nature Biomimicry exposes an original avenue of potential research and innovation. These present an alternative to the currently dominant principles that is worthy of further investigation.
• Cirque du Soleil: Innovations and Opportunities This paper will evaluate the drivers of innovation and entrepreneurial opportunities that have contributed to Cirque du Soleil’s success.
• Amazon’s Supply Chain and Transportation Innovations Amazon focuses on 3 “customer sets” that include “consumer customers, seller customers, and developer customers.” Its supply chain is characterized by significant diversification.
• Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) Theory DOI is one of the oldest social science theories and is still being used extensively by various organizations.
• Medical Innovations: 3D Bioprinting Artificial Intelligence This paper will discuss two medical technological innovations that are significant for the future of a medical organization and how different stakeholders could benefit from them.
• Information and Communication Impact on Innovation This article consists of 3 sources that explore the effect of information and communication technologies on innovation processes and difficulties connected with the development.
• The Spanish Fashion Industry: Business Model Innovation The Spanish companies tend to move from the idea of fast fashion models to more sustainable innovative business models.
• Creative Management of Bill Gates and Michael Porter: Innovations Management of creativity implies that the ideas are managed to such an extent that they are put into application in a certain specific context and that they are able to bear fruit.
• BT Groups Innovation Methods British Telecoms Group (BT Group) managed to survive the recession and global economic meltdown as a result of the principles of leadership that its management upheld.
• Customer Involvement in LEGO Group’s Innovation Process LEGO Group is a leading competitor that capitalizes on the concept of customer engagement. This approach can become a powerful model for companies.
• Abu Dhadi Airports Innovation in Aviation Both globalization and regional integration have a specific influence on business development. In the case of an industry as big as aviation one, this impact is even more evident.
• Smartphone Innovation and Powerful Marketing Plan The number of people purchasing and using smartphones has been on the rise. This change is catalyzed by emerging technologies such as applications and superior operating systems.
• Diffusion of Innovation Theory and Its Application Innovations help people to achieve results in the areas of their interests. The current implementation of the concepts is more practice-related rather than theoretical.
• Innovation Management and New Product Development The particular innovation opportunity identified in this report entails a collaboration tool that allows people to work from different locations but still function as a team.
• Entrepreneurship: Innovation, Failure, Culture Entrepreneurial failure refers to the discontinuation or exit from a business which includes a closure for any reason or change in ownership, bankruptcy, and persistent losses.
• Analysis of Innovation and Marketing Management The following paper discusses that creativity and innovation are worth for businesses to come up with competitive products and services.
• Airline Industry Trends, Changes, and Innovations Airlines are seeking to explore on the convenience created by information technology to earn extra revenues on top of their primary travel business.
• Farming Business Innovations: Urban Cultivator and Tree-T-Pee The urban cultivator is an alternative that reduces complications of foul weather or stale herbs and micro greens. Cost-efficient Tree-T-Pee, revolutionizes farming businesses.
• Biotechnological Innovations in Medicine Biology has possibilities for developing new technologies in genetic engineering. Biotechnological innovations in medicine bear the separate name of biomedicine.
• Tokyo’s Technological Wonder and Innovation Tokyo’s innovation efforts are largely associated with three major areas – robotics, Internet-of-Things and med-tech.
• Business Innovation and Skill (BIS) Data Analysis The purpose of the present report is to compare the Southeast region with the North West region in terms of similarities and differences in business development.
• Southwest Airlines Company: Innovation and Marketing The Southwest Airlines Company is one of the most innovative companies and this paper is going to carry out a discussion about this company.
• Measuring Factors Affecting Implementation of Health Innovations Transformational leadership with a rational and structured approach to change implementation can enhance the quality of medical services and improve professionals’ working conditions.
• Military Drones: Innovation Project Unmanned aerial vehicles have revolutionized modern-day wars and the approach that is used to collect data, especially in locations deemed unsafe for military personnel.
• Techsol Corporation’s Creativity and Innovation This report proposes a plan for managing creativity and innovation in Techsol to ensure that the company’s goals can be achieved.
• Biomedical Technology and Innovation Issues Biomedical engineers at WPI have found a way to use spinach leaves to grow functioning human heart muscle, potentially solving a long-standing problem of repairing damaged organs.
• Starbucks’ Corporate Culture and Innovation The success of Starbucks can be attributed to several elements of the organizational culture and considering the diverse needs of clients by implementing new technologies.
• Procter & Gamble Company’s Creativity and Innovation Processes Procter & Gamble employs creativity innovation management in the firm. Its main goal is to endorse the growth and development of the rates of its shareholders.
• David Emsley’s Innovation Theory Emsley refers to the idea that innovations should help organisations in the process of adaptation to the changing business environments and survive in these environments.
• Education and Innovation in the UAE The proposed research will attempt to gather information concerning the modernization in the educational institutions of the UAE that has already been going on for some time and review its effects.
• Innovation Impact on Export Success This study makes it evident that the innovative efforts implemented by companies are triumphant in the promotion of their success in foreign markets.
• Walmart Company Innovations in Supply Chain Management Over the course of the last two decades, Wal-Mart has emerged among the most influential retail companies. This paper describes innovations Wal-Mart has brought to Supply Chain Management.
• Adverse Effects of Patents on Innovation in Business The paper indicates how scientists debate the patent system and its influences on the transfer of technology, operation improvements, and advanced products.
• Organizational Change Leadership and Innovation The vitality of organizational leadership changes surfaces in the article “A people-centric approach to driving change” by K. Gill.
• Culture as Innovation: Pop and Global Culture Culture is innovative because it demonstrates the capacity of the human imagination to go beyond what is provided, solve problems, and produce innovations.
• Mental Healthcare Provision & Barriers to Innovation Mental health providers require innovative ways of improving care delivery, but they are experiencing significant challenges in adopting innovations.
• Impact of Accounting Conservatism on Innovation This paper discusses the relationship between accounting conservatism, innovation, and investment and the current state of knowledge on the matter.
• The Challenge of Fostering Innovation for Subsequent Growth The paper states that a climate for the inclusion of employees is associated with a greater propensity to promote and maintain innovations.
• Technological Health Innovations The incorporation of play activities (e.g., virtual reality) suggests that play stimuli can inspire and somewhat push people toward a healthy lifestyle, for example.
• Cloud Technology Innovation in Pharmaceutical Company Digital technology facilitates the storage of records and access to databases, but with each passing year, using physical hard drives becomes less efficient.
• Analysis of Walmart Innovations The paper evaluates the technologies of Online Grocery Shopping and the Walmart+ subscription service in terms of benefit to the organization and satisfaction of consumer needs.
• Three Technological Innovations The paper discusses three technological innovations. Namely, they are locust-brain cancer preventive recognition, world coin crypto base, and Hikvision.
• Innovations Disrupting the Existing Market This paper describes three innovations currently disrupting the existing market: sharing services, web-based videos, and cryptocurrency.
• J. J. Thomson and His Innovation in Chemistry An English physicist, J. J. Thomson, was an academic who made one of the scientific revolutions in the history of atomic chemistry.
• Analysis of Innovation in Healthcare The innovation of 3D printing in healthcare has influenced enhanced healthcare outcomes by cutting costs and improving access.
• Healthcare Trends and Innovations Telemedicine and the introduction of artificial intelligence are currently the most important and influential modern healthcare trends.
• Tokyo: The City With Innovation Tokyo in Japan is one of the fastest-growing cities with innovative technology. The city’s technology has helped the country attract more foreign investors.
• Apple Company Case Study: How Innovations Help Improve Company The paper analyses why Apple has been the most technologically advanced company globally for years, and others like it are growing in that ranking year after year.
• Why Tokyo Is Synonymous With Innovation Innovative solutions and the search for continuous improvement are vital for keeping the city infrastructure functional and its residents’ content.
• Digital Social Innovation This paper will discuss a top to bottom examination of the significance of digital innovation and its relations to social development.
• Experiential Learning of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Studying entrepreneurship in higher education shows that one must employ experiential knowledge and go through the process called “learning by doing”.
• Researching of Strategic Innovation It is possible to advise technical process automation in a circumstance where incremental innovation or change is a preferable approach.
• General Motors Firm’s Electric Vehicle Innovation The transformation of General Motors into an auto concern that will focus on the transition to electric vehicles is an important step for the company and the entire planet.
• Telehealth Innovations and Their Benefits The introduction of telehealth innovations will ensure continuity in the work of medical organizations and will create prospects for the formation of a single information space.
• Incubating Technology-Based Firms: Innovation Ambidexterity The formation of innovation policy is the most important condition for developing the foundations of sustainable development of incubating technology-based firms.
• Progress, Innovation, and Greatness in Middle Ages The Middle Ages can be viewed as a time of progress, innovation, and greatness when you take into consideration of “Economy and Society” and “The Emerging Western States.”
• Western Discoveries and Innovations: Reaction of the Middle East It is very interesting to observe how the Middle East, already rich in culture and a certain scientific base, reacted to discoveries from the West.
• Creative Trends in Design and Nature of Innovation One constant thing in the universe is change. Change is the foundation of innovation, and today, the speed of change within human societies is at its highest.
• Innovations in Zillow Firm’s Business Model Zillow’s business model is in providing homebuyers with extensive data and other information about properties they might be interested in purchasing.
• Innovation in the Cybersecurity Industry This paper explains the role of innovation in the cybersecurity industry and identifies the major developers related to inventions.
• Financial Companies’ Risks and Innovations This essay aims to explore the reasons for the propensity to innovate and the maintenance of risk among financial companies.
• Tencent Analysis. Micro Innovation Strategy Tencent is a large Chinese company that has managed to expand its reach into the global market and gain a grasp of fields its competition did not consider.
• Innovation in International Business International business is the highest form of entrepreneurial activity, and innovation plays a vital role in the conceptual idea of gaining a competitive advantage.
• Market Designs and Entrepreneurship Innovations This essay discusses the comparison between companies that upheld the triadic approach to entrepreneurship and companies that did not use the method.
• Ethics of Innovation in Relation to Leadership Innovation has traditionally been in and out of fashion but is still defined as the most significant route for organizations to quicken the pace of progress.
• Innovation: Description and Implementation Plan The author describes the increased threat of cyber attacks to organizations and proposes an innovative solution to the problem and a roadmap for its implementation.
• Impact of Advancing Technology on Human Innovation: CRISPR Technology is implemented because there is a promising one that has emerged or if there is a performance gap that leads to the need for a change in an existing process.
• Customer Care Innovations Implementation The paper proposes the implementation of significant innovations within the customer care scope to allow for profitable performance in the long term.
• Innovations and Consumer Experience in Health Care New technological solutions, such as mobile health applications and interoperable systems, provide considerable opportunities to improve patient experience in health care.
• Health Leadership and Management Innovation A patient care facility has the responsibility of delivering health care to patients in a timely, safe and effective manner.
• Healthcare Innovations and Improvements The article showed that the effective implementation of the Lean Six Sigma management strategy resulted in vital implications for hospitals.
• The Graduate House of the University of Toronto: Innovation or Provocation The Graduate House of the University of Toronto is one of the architectural projects that provokes multiple discussions and separates the public opinion by its design.
• Innovation and People Management in Business Processes Innovation is one of the most essential factors in the sustainable and efficient development of the company, the company’s executives might choose among different solutions.
• Yum!: Brands Innovations and Commercialization This report will discuss this system, identifying the crucial factors of its success, as well as provide recommendations on how to improve the mentioned commercialization activities.
• Action Plan to Improve Innovation Within a Team An action plan to increase the number of innovative ideas begins with an overview of the management theories and practices of other companies in the oil and gas industry.
• Sustainable Business Model Innovation Sustainable business model innovation comprises new business units, diversification to other business versions, and the purchase of new investments.
• Innovation: Wood, Energy, and Medical Firms Case Study To study the case of Polaris Industries Inc., we have picked several credible scholarly sources in addition to the materials on the company website.
• Technology Innovation and the Cultural Loss of Customary Practices Older people in modern societies acknowledge that participatory entertainment has been part of traditional culture for generations.
• Perpetual Mercy Hospital’s Innovations Downtown Health Clinic, a branch of Perpetual Mercy Hospital is faced with potential competition from a similar rival clinic slated for opening within its territorial market.
• Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Entrepreneurial Opportunities for Graduates The classic expression of entrepreneurship is the raw start-up company, an innovative idea that develops into a high-growth company.
• Energy Innovation Evolutionary Economics and Policies The use of innovative energy technology is influenced by insights into evolutionary economics. Through such insights, better policies can be formulated.
• “Seeds of Innovation” and Darwin The aim of this thesis is to apply Darwin’s theory of evolution to the seedbeds of innovation that shape the growth of companies during various phases of their business.
• Innovation Differences When Crossing Borders As a result of globalization, organizations are facing profound pressure to reform and improve stakeholder-related practices but in a profitable manner.
• Innovation in Operation Management – Personal Experience To overcome the different challenges faced by companies, they must put in place some strategies like differentiating their products or services from those of the competition.
• Seeds of Innovation – Change Strategies There are many efforts that are aimed at creating change in the management of an organization. Three change strategies are programmatic, continuous and emergent.
• Social Change Through Technological Innovation As people interact in various ways technology has been utilized to enhance aspects of human life and social contacts.
• Technology Management: To What Extent Is Collaboration in Networks a Requirement of Today’s Innovation Process? What KM and innovation requires from us is not to overestimate the expected outcomes that the performance tendencies are typically associated with and its diverse aliases have had on business administration.
• Entrepreneurship and the Role of Innovation Entrepreneurship is the art of pulling together resources and business acumen as a way of transforming innovations into economically viable goods
• Innovation and Creativity Factors in Management Innovation is one of the core subjects that is important in determining the success of a business enterprise in meeting its customers’ needs.
• Innovation and Creativity in Management A critical analysis of the case study ‘Photovoltaic Breakthrough’ has been performed in this paper. The case relates to frameworks and concepts of innovative management concepts at an Palo Alto Research Centre.
• Merchandise Trend: Analysis of Articles on Innovations While innovations in high technology often receive the greatest publicity, advances have been made in many fields and at many levels of the police field.
• Medical Product Development and Innovation Event This paper aims to identify the purpose, participants, agenda, logistics, and outcomes of the Medical Product Development and Innovation event.
• Amazon’s Innovation, Sustainability, Global Market The paper is dedicated to the study of Amazon’s long-term goals and analyzing its strategies for future development.
• Medical Company’s Functioning, Innovations and Change The rapid development of technologies and the appearance of new devices impacted all spheres of human activity.
• Continuity and Change in Managing Innovation In modern business, innovation management turns out to be a significant process in terms of which organizational growth and competitiveness are possible.
• Cloud Computing as Information Technology Innovation The central idea behind cloud computing is transferring and storing data in a big data center securely accessible from any computing device connected to the internet.
• Transforming Business Performance: Creativity and Innovation In the modern world, the development of contemporary markets involves the application of creative and innovative approaches in business.
• Implementing Cost-Effective Stem Cell Innovation The purpose of the paper is to explore the broader issues that impact clinical trials of stem cell research and treatment in general.
• Polaris Industries Inc.’s Innovation and Success Polaris Industries Inc. builds and designs various machines. It gained success due to its innovations, which are one of the most important company’s values.
• How Samsung Gets Innovations to Market? Samsung company controls its designing, manufacturing, distribution and marketing process for its products via the consumer focused innovation team.
• SBE Innovations Ltd.’s Value Management Project The Public-Private Partnership represented by SBE Innovations has the two-fold objective of ensuring a fair return on investment and enhancing community life.
• Curriculum Design and Innovation in Language Teaching The issues of curriculum design and innovation have been troubling both practitioners and theoreticians in linguistics, pedagogy, language learning spheres for several centuries.
• Lego Company’s Successful Innovation Strategy Lego introduced new products and diversified the range of its products. Nonetheless, this change was not supported by the change in distribution and logistics.
• South Korea’s Innovations in Data Privacy Principles This article focuses on the current principles of information protection in South Korea and compares them to those of other Asian countries. Innovations that were introduced are central topics for discussion.
• Innovation and Change Management The main purpose of the ‘Leading Innovation & Change’ module is to get theoretical and practical knowledge in the role of team and leadership in the organization.
• Apple Inc.’s Innovation and Simplicity Apple Inc. is a technology company that combines the functions of manufacturing and retail businesses. It has a unique strategy promoting constant innovation and simplicity.
• Nursing Professionalism and Innovations In the modern realm of the globalized environment, a nurse must focus on meeting the needs of an extremely diverse population.
• ORPIC Company: Mobilising Creativity and Innovation This report analyzes internal environment factors in ORPIC that play the primary role in determining the organizational capabilities for creativity and innovation.
• Knowledge-Oriented Leadership and Open Innovation The primary goal of this paper is to investigate the influence of knowledge-oriented leadership and organizational learning culture on open innovation and competitiveness.
• National Pharmacy: Mobilising Creativity and Innovation This paper is focused on utilising innovation and creativity theoretical models to improve the work environment at the National Pharmacy L.L.C.
• WWI and Interwar Military Innovations WWI triggered the development of an array of interwar military innovations. Today specialization is common in contemporary military forces.
• Nursing: Sustainability of the Innovation The efforts aimed at sustainability include engagement of nurses through meetings, which were used to address their concerns and manage their perceptions.
• Leadership Role in Quality and Innovation Any study that does not help the organization to grow in the modern world is not fit for use. The density of improving leadership can save millions of jobs and technological growth.
• Employee Self-Efficacy for Innovation Performance This paper evaluates the role of self-efficacy in the process of improving the innovation performance of employees and discusses through the works of Bandura, Zimmerman, Luthans.
• Personal Innovation Capacities Development The purpose of the research is to study the nature of innovativeness on a personal level and use this knowledge to define the methods helping to enhance personal capabilities.
• Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neurotoxicity: Analysis and Innovation Strategies Neurotoxicity is a serious problem affecting both the quality of life of cancer patients and the very possibility of antitumor intervention.
• Digital Consumer Involvement and Innovation Dynamics “Digital Strategies of Consumer Involvement and Innovation Dynamics” investigates the collaborative process between consumers and providers through digital technologies.
• Self-Efficacy in Improving Employee Innovation The paper discusses and analyzes how self-efficacy or its absence influences the innovation performance of employees and how their skills affect the entire business progress.
• Creativity in Generating Business Ideas and Innovation Innovation in technology, business processes, and industries has led to the “Creative Age” that has fuelled economic growth.
• Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management Concepts Nowadays, it remains evident that the business world tends to evolve, and its growth is accompanied by an extended variety of concepts and their development.
• Wristop Technologies Company’s Innovations This paper analyzes the Wristop Technologies company, its innovation and its source, the suitability of the chosen market and the importance of intellectual property rights.
• Innovation in “Diagnosing Greatness” by Morgan Swink The book, Diagnosing Greatness, discusses the ways how any organization can become successful and achieve benchmarks in the sector or economy they position themselves.
• Creativity and Innovation in a Business Environment Creativity allows individuals to dedicate their time to researching and developing new ideas that can be commercialized.
• Education and Innovation in the Middle East The improvement in the national education system is the major driver of the economic diversification in the state.
• Innovation and Marketing: Main Aspects The paper explores a background of the literature on creativity and innovation and provides the innovation model that will be employed for given situation.
• “Just-In-Time Inventory Systems Innovation and the Predictability of Earnings”: Article Review Just-in-time inventory models relate to the system of inventory management aimed at offering the inventory readily available in order to meet the demand of potential customers.
• How to Manage Radical Innovation? The major theme of the article “How to Manage Radical Innovation” by Robert Stringer is the identification of organizational issues that hinder or encourage radical innovation.
• How Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Are Related?
• What Are the Systems of Innovation Perspectives and Challenges?
• How Technological Innovation Changed the Course of History in the Middle Ages?
• What Is the Latest Innovation That Medical Industry Is Experimenting?
• How Marketing Design and Innovation Are Related?
• How NBC Started the Innovation of Television News Industry?
• Why Sony Minidisc Is Called Failed Innovation Nowadays?
• What Are Sustainable Efforts for Innovation in Lego?
• What Are Some Techniques for Stimulating Innovation?
• What Is the Connection Between Demand and Innovation?
• What Does Term the Innovation Value Chain Mean?
• What Is the Theoritical Approach To Banking Innovation?
• What Are the Strengths and Challenges of Open Innovation?
• How the Widening and Deepening of Innovation Policy Is Going?
• What Are the Barriers of Innovation in SMES?
• Which Companies Should Implement Management Innovation?
• Why Creativity and Innovation Is Important to Contemporary Company?
• Why Space Exploration and Innovation Is Important for the Human Race?
• What Is the Relationship Between Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Development?
• What Is the Definition and Measurement of Innovation?
• What Is the Inter Link Between Copyright and Innovation Law?
• What Are the Most Common Models of Innovation?
• What Lays Behind Successful Military Innovation?
• What Does Salesforce Idea for Disruptive Innovation Mean?
• Why Do New Products Fail in the Process of Innovation?

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StudyCorgi . 2021. "212 Innovation Ideas to Write about & Innovation Research Topics." September 9, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/innovation-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Innovation were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on January 8, 2024 .

REALIZING THE PROMISE:

Leading up to the 75th anniversary of the UN General Assembly, this “Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all?” publication kicks off the Center for Universal Education’s first playbook in a series to help improve education around the world.

It is intended as an evidence-based tool for ministries of education, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, to adopt and more successfully invest in education technology.

While there is no single education initiative that will achieve the same results everywhere—as school systems differ in learners and educators, as well as in the availability and quality of materials and technologies—an important first step is understanding how technology is used given specific local contexts and needs.

The surveys in this playbook are designed to be adapted to collect this information from educators, learners, and school leaders and guide decisionmakers in expanding the use of technology.  

Introduction

While technology has disrupted most sectors of the economy and changed how we communicate, access information, work, and even play, its impact on schools, teaching, and learning has been much more limited. We believe that this limited impact is primarily due to technology being been used to replace analog tools, without much consideration given to playing to technology’s comparative advantages. These comparative advantages, relative to traditional “chalk-and-talk” classroom instruction, include helping to scale up standardized instruction, facilitate differentiated instruction, expand opportunities for practice, and increase student engagement. When schools use technology to enhance the work of educators and to improve the quality and quantity of educational content, learners will thrive.

Further, COVID-19 has laid bare that, in today’s environment where pandemics and the effects of climate change are likely to occur, schools cannot always provide in-person education—making the case for investing in education technology.

Here we argue for a simple yet surprisingly rare approach to education technology that seeks to:

• Understand the needs, infrastructure, and capacity of a school system—the diagnosis;
• Survey the best available evidence on interventions that match those conditions—the evidence; and
• Closely monitor the results of innovations before they are scaled up—the prognosis.

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The framework.

Our approach builds on a simple yet intuitive theoretical framework created two decades ago by two of the most prominent education researchers in the United States, David K. Cohen and Deborah Loewenberg Ball. They argue that what matters most to improve learning is the interactions among educators and learners around educational materials. We believe that the failed school-improvement efforts in the U.S. that motivated Cohen and Ball’s framework resemble the ed-tech reforms in much of the developing world to date in the lack of clarity improving the interactions between educators, learners, and the educational material. We build on their framework by adding parents as key agents that mediate the relationships between learners and educators and the material (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The instructional core

Adapted from Cohen and Ball (1999)

As the figure above suggests, ed-tech interventions can affect the instructional core in a myriad of ways. Yet, just because technology can do something, it does not mean it should. School systems in developing countries differ along many dimensions and each system is likely to have different needs for ed-tech interventions, as well as different infrastructure and capacity to enact such interventions.

The diagnosis:

How can school systems assess their needs and preparedness.

A useful first step for any school system to determine whether it should invest in education technology is to diagnose its:

• Specific needs to improve student learning (e.g., raising the average level of achievement, remediating gaps among low performers, and challenging high performers to develop higher-order skills);
• Infrastructure to adopt technology-enabled solutions (e.g., electricity connection, availability of space and outlets, stock of computers, and Internet connectivity at school and at learners’ homes); and
• Capacity to integrate technology in the instructional process (e.g., learners’ and educators’ level of familiarity and comfort with hardware and software, their beliefs about the level of usefulness of technology for learning purposes, and their current uses of such technology).

Before engaging in any new data collection exercise, school systems should take full advantage of existing administrative data that could shed light on these three main questions. This could be in the form of internal evaluations but also international learner assessments, such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and/or the Progress in International Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS). But if school systems lack information on their preparedness for ed-tech reforms or if they seek to complement existing data with a richer set of indicators, we developed a set of surveys for learners, educators, and school leaders. Download the full report to see how we map out the main aspects covered by these surveys, in hopes of highlighting how they could be used to inform decisions around the adoption of ed-tech interventions.

The evidence:

How can school systems identify promising ed-tech interventions.

There is no single “ed-tech” initiative that will achieve the same results everywhere, simply because school systems differ in learners and educators, as well as in the availability and quality of materials and technologies. Instead, to realize the potential of education technology to accelerate student learning, decisionmakers should focus on four potential uses of technology that play to its comparative advantages and complement the work of educators to accelerate student learning (Figure 2). These comparative advantages include:

• Scaling up quality instruction, such as through prerecorded quality lessons.
• Facilitating differentiated instruction, through, for example, computer-adaptive learning and live one-on-one tutoring.
• Expanding opportunities to practice.
• Increasing learner engagement through videos and games.

Figure 2: Comparative advantages of technology

Here we review the evidence on ed-tech interventions from 37 studies in 20 countries*, organizing them by comparative advantage. It’s important to note that ours is not the only way to classify these interventions (e.g., video tutorials could be considered as a strategy to scale up instruction or increase learner engagement), but we believe it may be useful to highlight the needs that they could address and why technology is well positioned to do so.

When discussing specific studies, we report the magnitude of the effects of interventions using standard deviations (SDs). SDs are a widely used metric in research to express the effect of a program or policy with respect to a business-as-usual condition (e.g., test scores). There are several ways to make sense of them. One is to categorize the magnitude of the effects based on the results of impact evaluations. In developing countries, effects below 0.1 SDs are considered to be small, effects between 0.1 and 0.2 SDs are medium, and those above 0.2 SDs are large (for reviews that estimate the average effect of groups of interventions, called “meta analyses,” see e.g., Conn, 2017; Kremer, Brannen, & Glennerster, 2013; McEwan, 2014; Snilstveit et al., 2015; Evans & Yuan, 2020.)

*In surveying the evidence, we began by compiling studies from prior general and ed-tech specific evidence reviews that some of us have written and from ed-tech reviews conducted by others. Then, we tracked the studies cited by the ones we had previously read and reviewed those, as well. In identifying studies for inclusion, we focused on experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of education technology interventions from pre-school to secondary school in low- and middle-income countries that were released between 2000 and 2020. We only included interventions that sought to improve student learning directly (i.e., students’ interaction with the material), as opposed to interventions that have impacted achievement indirectly, by reducing teacher absence or increasing parental engagement. This process yielded 37 studies in 20 countries (see the full list of studies in Appendix B).

Scaling up standardized instruction

One of the ways in which technology may improve the quality of education is through its capacity to deliver standardized quality content at scale. This feature of technology may be particularly useful in three types of settings: (a) those in “hard-to-staff” schools (i.e., schools that struggle to recruit educators with the requisite training and experience—typically, in rural and/or remote areas) (see, e.g., Urquiola & Vegas, 2005); (b) those in which many educators are frequently absent from school (e.g., Chaudhury, Hammer, Kremer, Muralidharan, & Rogers, 2006; Muralidharan, Das, Holla, & Mohpal, 2017); and/or (c) those in which educators have low levels of pedagogical and subject matter expertise (e.g., Bietenbeck, Piopiunik, & Wiederhold, 2018; Bold et al., 2017; Metzler & Woessmann, 2012; Santibañez, 2006) and do not have opportunities to observe and receive feedback (e.g., Bruns, Costa, & Cunha, 2018; Cilliers, Fleisch, Prinsloo, & Taylor, 2018). Technology could address this problem by: (a) disseminating lessons delivered by qualified educators to a large number of learners (e.g., through prerecorded or live lessons); (b) enabling distance education (e.g., for learners in remote areas and/or during periods of school closures); and (c) distributing hardware preloaded with educational materials.

Prerecorded lessons

Technology seems to be well placed to amplify the impact of effective educators by disseminating their lessons. Evidence on the impact of prerecorded lessons is encouraging, but not conclusive. Some initiatives that have used short instructional videos to complement regular instruction, in conjunction with other learning materials, have raised student learning on independent assessments. For example, Beg et al. (2020) evaluated an initiative in Punjab, Pakistan in which grade 8 classrooms received an intervention that included short videos to substitute live instruction, quizzes for learners to practice the material from every lesson, tablets for educators to learn the material and follow the lesson, and LED screens to project the videos onto a classroom screen. After six months, the intervention improved the performance of learners on independent tests of math and science by 0.19 and 0.24 SDs, respectively but had no discernible effect on the math and science section of Punjab’s high-stakes exams.

One study suggests that approaches that are far less technologically sophisticated can also improve learning outcomes—especially, if the business-as-usual instruction is of low quality. For example, Naslund-Hadley, Parker, and Hernandez-Agramonte (2014) evaluated a preschool math program in Cordillera, Paraguay that used audio segments and written materials four days per week for an hour per day during the school day. After five months, the intervention improved math scores by 0.16 SDs, narrowing gaps between low- and high-achieving learners, and between those with and without educators with formal training in early childhood education.

Yet, the integration of prerecorded material into regular instruction has not always been successful. For example, de Barros (2020) evaluated an intervention that combined instructional videos for math and science with infrastructure upgrades (e.g., two “smart” classrooms, two TVs, and two tablets), printed workbooks for students, and in-service training for educators of learners in grades 9 and 10 in Haryana, India (all materials were mapped onto the official curriculum). After 11 months, the intervention negatively impacted math achievement (by 0.08 SDs) and had no effect on science (with respect to business as usual classes). It reduced the share of lesson time that educators devoted to instruction and negatively impacted an index of instructional quality. Likewise, Seo (2017) evaluated several combinations of infrastructure (solar lights and TVs) and prerecorded videos (in English and/or bilingual) for grade 11 students in northern Tanzania and found that none of the variants improved student learning, even when the videos were used. The study reports effects from the infrastructure component across variants, but as others have noted (Muralidharan, Romero, & Wüthrich, 2019), this approach to estimating impact is problematic.

A very similar intervention delivered after school hours, however, had sizeable effects on learners’ basic skills. Chiplunkar, Dhar, and Nagesh (2020) evaluated an initiative in Chennai (the capital city of the state of Tamil Nadu, India) delivered by the same organization as above that combined short videos that explained key concepts in math and science with worksheets, facilitator-led instruction, small groups for peer-to-peer learning, and occasional career counseling and guidance for grade 9 students. These lessons took place after school for one hour, five times a week. After 10 months, it had large effects on learners’ achievement as measured by tests of basic skills in math and reading, but no effect on a standardized high-stakes test in grade 10 or socio-emotional skills (e.g., teamwork, decisionmaking, and communication).

Drawing general lessons from this body of research is challenging for at least two reasons. First, all of the studies above have evaluated the impact of prerecorded lessons combined with several other components (e.g., hardware, print materials, or other activities). Therefore, it is possible that the effects found are due to these additional components, rather than to the recordings themselves, or to the interaction between the two (see Muralidharan, 2017 for a discussion of the challenges of interpreting “bundled” interventions). Second, while these studies evaluate some type of prerecorded lessons, none examines the content of such lessons. Thus, it seems entirely plausible that the direction and magnitude of the effects depends largely on the quality of the recordings (e.g., the expertise of the educator recording it, the amount of preparation that went into planning the recording, and its alignment with best teaching practices).

These studies also raise three important questions worth exploring in future research. One of them is why none of the interventions discussed above had effects on high-stakes exams, even if their materials are typically mapped onto the official curriculum. It is possible that the official curricula are simply too challenging for learners in these settings, who are several grade levels behind expectations and who often need to reinforce basic skills (see Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). Another question is whether these interventions have long-term effects on teaching practices. It seems plausible that, if these interventions are deployed in contexts with low teaching quality, educators may learn something from watching the videos or listening to the recordings with learners. Yet another question is whether these interventions make it easier for schools to deliver instruction to learners whose native language is other than the official medium of instruction.

Distance education

Technology can also allow learners living in remote areas to access education. The evidence on these initiatives is encouraging. For example, Johnston and Ksoll (2017) evaluated a program that broadcasted live instruction via satellite to rural primary school students in the Volta and Greater Accra regions of Ghana. For this purpose, the program also equipped classrooms with the technology needed to connect to a studio in Accra, including solar panels, a satellite modem, a projector, a webcam, microphones, and a computer with interactive software. After two years, the intervention improved the numeracy scores of students in grades 2 through 4, and some foundational literacy tasks, but it had no effect on attendance or classroom time devoted to instruction, as captured by school visits. The authors interpreted these results as suggesting that the gains in achievement may be due to improving the quality of instruction that children received (as opposed to increased instructional time). Naik, Chitre, Bhalla, and Rajan (2019) evaluated a similar program in the Indian state of Karnataka and also found positive effects on learning outcomes, but it is not clear whether those effects are due to the program or due to differences in the groups of students they compared to estimate the impact of the initiative.

In one context (Mexico), this type of distance education had positive long-term effects. Navarro-Sola (2019) took advantage of the staggered rollout of the telesecundarias (i.e., middle schools with lessons broadcasted through satellite TV) in 1968 to estimate its impact. The policy had short-term effects on students’ enrollment in school: For every telesecundaria per 50 children, 10 students enrolled in middle school and two pursued further education. It also had a long-term influence on the educational and employment trajectory of its graduates. Each additional year of education induced by the policy increased average income by nearly 18 percent. This effect was attributable to more graduates entering the labor force and shifting from agriculture and the informal sector. Similarly, Fabregas (2019) leveraged a later expansion of this policy in 1993 and found that each additional telesecundaria per 1,000 adolescents led to an average increase of 0.2 years of education, and a decline in fertility for women, but no conclusive evidence of long-term effects on labor market outcomes.

It is crucial to interpret these results keeping in mind the settings where the interventions were implemented. As we mention above, part of the reason why they have proven effective is that the “counterfactual” conditions for learning (i.e., what would have happened to learners in the absence of such programs) was either to not have access to schooling or to be exposed to low-quality instruction. School systems interested in taking up similar interventions should assess the extent to which their learners (or parts of their learner population) find themselves in similar conditions to the subjects of the studies above. This illustrates the importance of assessing the needs of a system before reviewing the evidence.

Preloaded hardware

Technology also seems well positioned to disseminate educational materials. Specifically, hardware (e.g., desktop computers, laptops, or tablets) could also help deliver educational software (e.g., word processing, reference texts, and/or games). In theory, these materials could not only undergo a quality assurance review (e.g., by curriculum specialists and educators), but also draw on the interactions with learners for adjustments (e.g., identifying areas needing reinforcement) and enable interactions between learners and educators.

In practice, however, most initiatives that have provided learners with free computers, laptops, and netbooks do not leverage any of the opportunities mentioned above. Instead, they install a standard set of educational materials and hope that learners find them helpful enough to take them up on their own. Students rarely do so, and instead use the laptops for recreational purposes—often, to the detriment of their learning (see, e.g., Malamud & Pop-Eleches, 2011). In fact, free netbook initiatives have not only consistently failed to improve academic achievement in math or language (e.g., Cristia et al., 2017), but they have had no impact on learners’ general computer skills (e.g., Beuermann et al., 2015). Some of these initiatives have had small impacts on cognitive skills, but the mechanisms through which those effects occurred remains unclear.

To our knowledge, the only successful deployment of a free laptop initiative was one in which a team of researchers equipped the computers with remedial software. Mo et al. (2013) evaluated a version of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program for grade 3 students in migrant schools in Beijing, China in which the laptops were loaded with a remedial software mapped onto the national curriculum for math (similar to the software products that we discuss under “practice exercises” below). After nine months, the program improved math achievement by 0.17 SDs and computer skills by 0.33 SDs. If a school system decides to invest in free laptops, this study suggests that the quality of the software on the laptops is crucial.

To date, however, the evidence suggests that children do not learn more from interacting with laptops than they do from textbooks. For example, Bando, Gallego, Gertler, and Romero (2016) compared the effect of free laptop and textbook provision in 271 elementary schools in disadvantaged areas of Honduras. After seven months, students in grades 3 and 6 who had received the laptops performed on par with those who had received the textbooks in math and language. Further, even if textbooks essentially become obsolete at the end of each school year, whereas laptops can be reloaded with new materials for each year, the costs of laptop provision (not just the hardware, but also the technical assistance, Internet, and training associated with it) are not yet low enough to make them a more cost-effective way of delivering content to learners.

Evidence on the provision of tablets equipped with software is encouraging but limited. For example, de Hoop et al. (2020) evaluated a composite intervention for first grade students in Zambia’s Eastern Province that combined infrastructure (electricity via solar power), hardware (projectors and tablets), and educational materials (lesson plans for educators and interactive lessons for learners, both loaded onto the tablets and mapped onto the official Zambian curriculum). After 14 months, the intervention had improved student early-grade reading by 0.4 SDs, oral vocabulary scores by 0.25 SDs, and early-grade math by 0.22 SDs. It also improved students’ achievement by 0.16 on a locally developed assessment. The multifaceted nature of the program, however, makes it challenging to identify the components that are driving the positive effects. Pitchford (2015) evaluated an intervention that provided tablets equipped with educational “apps,” to be used for 30 minutes per day for two months to develop early math skills among students in grades 1 through 3 in Lilongwe, Malawi. The evaluation found positive impacts in math achievement, but the main study limitation is that it was conducted in a single school.

Facilitating differentiated instruction

Another way in which technology may improve educational outcomes is by facilitating the delivery of differentiated or individualized instruction. Most developing countries massively expanded access to schooling in recent decades by building new schools and making education more affordable, both by defraying direct costs, as well as compensating for opportunity costs (Duflo, 2001; World Bank, 2018). These initiatives have not only rapidly increased the number of learners enrolled in school, but have also increased the variability in learner’ preparation for schooling. Consequently, a large number of learners perform well below grade-based curricular expectations (see, e.g., Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, 2011; Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). These learners are unlikely to get much from “one-size-fits-all” instruction, in which a single educator delivers instruction deemed appropriate for the middle (or top) of the achievement distribution (Banerjee & Duflo, 2011). Technology could potentially help these learners by providing them with: (a) instruction and opportunities for practice that adjust to the level and pace of preparation of each individual (known as “computer-adaptive learning” (CAL)); or (b) live, one-on-one tutoring.

Computer-adaptive learning

One of the main comparative advantages of technology is its ability to diagnose students’ initial learning levels and assign students to instruction and exercises of appropriate difficulty. No individual educator—no matter how talented—can be expected to provide individualized instruction to all learners in his/her class simultaneously . In this respect, technology is uniquely positioned to complement traditional teaching. This use of technology could help learners master basic skills and help them get more out of schooling.

Although many software products evaluated in recent years have been categorized as CAL, many rely on a relatively coarse level of differentiation at an initial stage (e.g., a diagnostic test) without further differentiation. We discuss these initiatives under the category of “increasing opportunities for practice” below. CAL initiatives complement an initial diagnostic with dynamic adaptation (i.e., at each response or set of responses from learners) to adjust both the initial level of difficulty and rate at which it increases or decreases, depending on whether learners’ responses are correct or incorrect.

Existing evidence on this specific type of programs is highly promising. Most famously, Banerjee et al. (2007) evaluated CAL software in Vadodara, in the Indian state of Gujarat, in which grade 4 students were offered two hours of shared computer time per week before and after school, during which they played games that involved solving math problems. The level of difficulty of such problems adjusted based on students’ answers. This program improved math achievement by 0.35 and 0.47 SDs after one and two years of implementation, respectively. Consistent with the promise of personalized learning, the software improved achievement for all students. In fact, one year after the end of the program, students assigned to the program still performed 0.1 SDs better than those assigned to a business as usual condition. More recently, Muralidharan, et al. (2019) evaluated a “blended learning” initiative in which students in grades 4 through 9 in Delhi, India received 45 minutes of interaction with CAL software for math and language, and 45 minutes of small group instruction before or after going to school. After only 4.5 months, the program improved achievement by 0.37 SDs in math and 0.23 SDs in Hindi. While all learners benefited from the program in absolute terms, the lowest performing learners benefited the most in relative terms, since they were learning very little in school.

We see two important limitations from this body of research. First, to our knowledge, none of these initiatives has been evaluated when implemented during the school day. Therefore, it is not possible to distinguish the effect of the adaptive software from that of additional instructional time. Second, given that most of these programs were facilitated by local instructors, attempts to distinguish the effect of the software from that of the instructors has been mostly based on noncausal evidence. A frontier challenge in this body of research is to understand whether CAL software can increase the effectiveness of school-based instruction by substituting part of the regularly scheduled time for math and language instruction.

Live one-on-one tutoring

Recent improvements in the speed and quality of videoconferencing, as well as in the connectivity of remote areas, have enabled yet another way in which technology can help personalization: live (i.e., real-time) one-on-one tutoring. While the evidence on in-person tutoring is scarce in developing countries, existing studies suggest that this approach works best when it is used to personalize instruction (see, e.g., Banerjee et al., 2007; Banerji, Berry, & Shotland, 2015; Cabezas, Cuesta, & Gallego, 2011).

There are almost no studies on the impact of online tutoring—possibly, due to the lack of hardware and Internet connectivity in low- and middle-income countries. One exception is Chemin and Oledan (2020)’s recent evaluation of an online tutoring program for grade 6 students in Kianyaga, Kenya to learn English from volunteers from a Canadian university via Skype ( videoconferencing software) for one hour per week after school. After 10 months, program beneficiaries performed 0.22 SDs better in a test of oral comprehension, improved their comfort using technology for learning, and became more willing to engage in cross-cultural communication. Importantly, while the tutoring sessions used the official English textbooks and sought in part to help learners with their homework, tutors were trained on several strategies to teach to each learner’s individual level of preparation, focusing on basic skills if necessary. To our knowledge, similar initiatives within a country have not yet been rigorously evaluated.

Expanding opportunities for practice

A third way in which technology may improve the quality of education is by providing learners with additional opportunities for practice. In many developing countries, lesson time is primarily devoted to lectures, in which the educator explains the topic and the learners passively copy explanations from the blackboard. This setup leaves little time for in-class practice. Consequently, learners who did not understand the explanation of the material during lecture struggle when they have to solve homework assignments on their own. Technology could potentially address this problem by allowing learners to review topics at their own pace.

Practice exercises

Technology can help learners get more out of traditional instruction by providing them with opportunities to implement what they learn in class. This approach could, in theory, allow some learners to anchor their understanding of the material through trial and error (i.e., by realizing what they may not have understood correctly during lecture and by getting better acquainted with special cases not covered in-depth in class).

Existing evidence on practice exercises reflects both the promise and the limitations of this use of technology in developing countries. For example, Lai et al. (2013) evaluated a program in Shaanxi, China where students in grades 3 and 5 were required to attend two 40-minute remedial sessions per week in which they first watched videos that reviewed the material that had been introduced in their math lessons that week and then played games to practice the skills introduced in the video. After four months, the intervention improved math achievement by 0.12 SDs. Many other evaluations of comparable interventions have found similar small-to-moderate results (see, e.g., Lai, Luo, Zhang, Huang, & Rozelle, 2015; Lai et al., 2012; Mo et al., 2015; Pitchford, 2015). These effects, however, have been consistently smaller than those of initiatives that adjust the difficulty of the material based on students’ performance (e.g., Banerjee et al., 2007; Muralidharan, et al., 2019). We hypothesize that these programs do little for learners who perform several grade levels behind curricular expectations, and who would benefit more from a review of foundational concepts from earlier grades.

We see two important limitations from this research. First, most initiatives that have been evaluated thus far combine instructional videos with practice exercises, so it is hard to know whether their effects are driven by the former or the latter. In fact, the program in China described above allowed learners to ask their peers whenever they did not understand a difficult concept, so it potentially also captured the effect of peer-to-peer collaboration. To our knowledge, no studies have addressed this gap in the evidence.

Second, most of these programs are implemented before or after school, so we cannot distinguish the effect of additional instructional time from that of the actual opportunity for practice. The importance of this question was first highlighted by Linden (2008), who compared two delivery mechanisms for game-based remedial math software for students in grades 2 and 3 in a network of schools run by a nonprofit organization in Gujarat, India: one in which students interacted with the software during the school day and another one in which students interacted with the software before or after school (in both cases, for three hours per day). After a year, the first version of the program had negatively impacted students’ math achievement by 0.57 SDs and the second one had a null effect. This study suggested that computer-assisted learning is a poor substitute for regular instruction when it is of high quality, as was the case in this well-functioning private network of schools.

In recent years, several studies have sought to remedy this shortcoming. Mo et al. (2014) were among the first to evaluate practice exercises delivered during the school day. They evaluated an initiative in Shaanxi, China in which students in grades 3 and 5 were required to interact with the software similar to the one in Lai et al. (2013) for two 40-minute sessions per week. The main limitation of this study, however, is that the program was delivered during regularly scheduled computer lessons, so it could not determine the impact of substituting regular math instruction. Similarly, Mo et al. (2020) evaluated a self-paced and a teacher-directed version of a similar program for English for grade 5 students in Qinghai, China. Yet, the key shortcoming of this study is that the teacher-directed version added several components that may also influence achievement, such as increased opportunities for teachers to provide students with personalized assistance when they struggled with the material. Ma, Fairlie, Loyalka, and Rozelle (2020) compared the effectiveness of additional time-delivered remedial instruction for students in grades 4 to 6 in Shaanxi, China through either computer-assisted software or using workbooks. This study indicates whether additional instructional time is more effective when using technology, but it does not address the question of whether school systems may improve the productivity of instructional time during the school day by substituting educator-led with computer-assisted instruction.

Increasing learner engagement

Another way in which technology may improve education is by increasing learners’ engagement with the material. In many school systems, regular “chalk and talk” instruction prioritizes time for educators’ exposition over opportunities for learners to ask clarifying questions and/or contribute to class discussions. This, combined with the fact that many developing-country classrooms include a very large number of learners (see, e.g., Angrist & Lavy, 1999; Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, 2015), may partially explain why the majority of those students are several grade levels behind curricular expectations (e.g., Muralidharan, et al., 2019; Muralidharan & Zieleniak, 2014; Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). Technology could potentially address these challenges by: (a) using video tutorials for self-paced learning and (b) presenting exercises as games and/or gamifying practice.

Video tutorials

Technology can potentially increase learner effort and understanding of the material by finding new and more engaging ways to deliver it. Video tutorials designed for self-paced learning—as opposed to videos for whole class instruction, which we discuss under the category of “prerecorded lessons” above—can increase learner effort in multiple ways, including: allowing learners to focus on topics with which they need more help, letting them correct errors and misconceptions on their own, and making the material appealing through visual aids. They can increase understanding by breaking the material into smaller units and tackling common misconceptions.

In spite of the popularity of instructional videos, there is relatively little evidence on their effectiveness. Yet, two recent evaluations of different versions of the Khan Academy portal, which mainly relies on instructional videos, offer some insight into their impact. First, Ferman, Finamor, and Lima (2019) evaluated an initiative in 157 public primary and middle schools in five cities in Brazil in which the teachers of students in grades 5 and 9 were taken to the computer lab to learn math from the platform for 50 minutes per week. The authors found that, while the intervention slightly improved learners’ attitudes toward math, these changes did not translate into better performance in this subject. The authors hypothesized that this could be due to the reduction of teacher-led math instruction.

More recently, Büchel, Jakob, Kühnhanss, Steffen, and Brunetti (2020) evaluated an after-school, offline delivery of the Khan Academy portal in grades 3 through 6 in 302 primary schools in Morazán, El Salvador. Students in this study received 90 minutes per week of additional math instruction (effectively nearly doubling total math instruction per week) through teacher-led regular lessons, teacher-assisted Khan Academy lessons, or similar lessons assisted by technical supervisors with no content expertise. (Importantly, the first group provided differentiated instruction, which is not the norm in Salvadorian schools). All three groups outperformed both schools without any additional lessons and classrooms without additional lessons in the same schools as the program. The teacher-assisted Khan Academy lessons performed 0.24 SDs better, the supervisor-led lessons 0.22 SDs better, and the teacher-led regular lessons 0.15 SDs better, but the authors could not determine whether the effects across versions were different.

Together, these studies suggest that instructional videos work best when provided as a complement to, rather than as a substitute for, regular instruction. Yet, the main limitation of these studies is the multifaceted nature of the Khan Academy portal, which also includes other components found to positively improve learner achievement, such as differentiated instruction by students’ learning levels. While the software does not provide the type of personalization discussed above, learners are asked to take a placement test and, based on their score, educators assign them different work. Therefore, it is not clear from these studies whether the effects from Khan Academy are driven by its instructional videos or to the software’s ability to provide differentiated activities when combined with placement tests.

Games and gamification

Technology can also increase learner engagement by presenting exercises as games and/or by encouraging learner to play and compete with others (e.g., using leaderboards and rewards)—an approach known as “gamification.” Both approaches can increase learner motivation and effort by presenting learners with entertaining opportunities for practice and by leveraging peers as commitment devices.

There are very few studies on the effects of games and gamification in low- and middle-income countries. Recently, Araya, Arias Ortiz, Bottan, and Cristia (2019) evaluated an initiative in which grade 4 students in Santiago, Chile were required to participate in two 90-minute sessions per week during the school day with instructional math software featuring individual and group competitions (e.g., tracking each learner’s standing in his/her class and tournaments between sections). After nine months, the program led to improvements of 0.27 SDs in the national student assessment in math (it had no spillover effects on reading). However, it had mixed effects on non-academic outcomes. Specifically, the program increased learners’ willingness to use computers to learn math, but, at the same time, increased their anxiety toward math and negatively impacted learners’ willingness to collaborate with peers. Finally, given that one of the weekly sessions replaced regular math instruction and the other one represented additional math instructional time, it is not clear whether the academic effects of the program are driven by the software or the additional time devoted to learning math.

The prognosis:

How can school systems adopt interventions that match their needs.

Here are five specific and sequential guidelines for decisionmakers to realize the potential of education technology to accelerate student learning.

1. Take stock of how your current schools, educators, and learners are engaging with technology .

Carry out a short in-school survey to understand the current practices and potential barriers to adoption of technology (we have included suggested survey instruments in the Appendices); use this information in your decisionmaking process. For example, we learned from conversations with current and former ministers of education from various developing regions that a common limitation to technology use is regulations that hold school leaders accountable for damages to or losses of devices. Another common barrier is lack of access to electricity and Internet, or even the availability of sufficient outlets for charging devices in classrooms. Understanding basic infrastructure and regulatory limitations to the use of education technology is a first necessary step. But addressing these limitations will not guarantee that introducing or expanding technology use will accelerate learning. The next steps are thus necessary.

“In Africa, the biggest limit is connectivity. Fiber is expensive, and we don’t have it everywhere. The continent is creating a digital divide between cities, where there is fiber, and the rural areas.  The [Ghanaian] administration put in schools offline/online technologies with books, assessment tools, and open source materials. In deploying this, we are finding that again, teachers are unfamiliar with it. And existing policies prohibit students to bring their own tablets or cell phones. The easiest way to do it would have been to let everyone bring their own device. But policies are against it.” H.E. Matthew Prempeh, Minister of Education of Ghana, on the need to understand the local context.

2. Consider how the introduction of technology may affect the interactions among learners, educators, and content .

Our review of the evidence indicates that technology may accelerate student learning when it is used to scale up access to quality content, facilitate differentiated instruction, increase opportunities for practice, or when it increases learner engagement. For example, will adding electronic whiteboards to classrooms facilitate access to more quality content or differentiated instruction? Or will these expensive boards be used in the same way as the old chalkboards? Will providing one device (laptop or tablet) to each learner facilitate access to more and better content, or offer students more opportunities to practice and learn? Solely introducing technology in classrooms without additional changes is unlikely to lead to improved learning and may be quite costly. If you cannot clearly identify how the interactions among the three key components of the instructional core (educators, learners, and content) may change after the introduction of technology, then it is probably not a good idea to make the investment. See Appendix A for guidance on the types of questions to ask.

3. Once decisionmakers have a clear idea of how education technology can help accelerate student learning in a specific context, it is important to define clear objectives and goals and establish ways to regularly assess progress and make course corrections in a timely manner .

For instance, is the education technology expected to ensure that learners in early grades excel in foundational skills—basic literacy and numeracy—by age 10? If so, will the technology provide quality reading and math materials, ample opportunities to practice, and engaging materials such as videos or games? Will educators be empowered to use these materials in new ways? And how will progress be measured and adjusted?

4. How this kind of reform is approached can matter immensely for its success.

It is easy to nod to issues of “implementation,” but that needs to be more than rhetorical. Keep in mind that good use of education technology requires thinking about how it will affect learners, educators, and parents. After all, giving learners digital devices will make no difference if they get broken, are stolen, or go unused. Classroom technologies only matter if educators feel comfortable putting them to work. Since good technology is generally about complementing or amplifying what educators and learners already do, it is almost always a mistake to mandate programs from on high. It is vital that technology be adopted with the input of educators and families and with attention to how it will be used. If technology goes unused or if educators use it ineffectually, the results will disappoint—no matter the virtuosity of the technology. Indeed, unused education technology can be an unnecessary expenditure for cash-strapped education systems. This is why surveying context, listening to voices in the field, examining how technology is used, and planning for course correction is essential.

5. It is essential to communicate with a range of stakeholders, including educators, school leaders, parents, and learners .

Technology can feel alien in schools, confuse parents and (especially) older educators, or become an alluring distraction. Good communication can help address all of these risks. Taking care to listen to educators and families can help ensure that programs are informed by their needs and concerns. At the same time, deliberately and consistently explaining what technology is and is not supposed to do, how it can be most effectively used, and the ways in which it can make it more likely that programs work as intended. For instance, if teachers fear that technology is intended to reduce the need for educators, they will tend to be hostile; if they believe that it is intended to assist them in their work, they will be more receptive. Absent effective communication, it is easy for programs to “fail” not because of the technology but because of how it was used. In short, past experience in rolling out education programs indicates that it is as important to have a strong intervention design as it is to have a solid plan to socialize it among stakeholders.

Beyond reopening: A leapfrog moment to transform education?

On September 14, the Center for Universal Education (CUE) will host a webinar to discuss strategies, including around the effective use of education technology, for ensuring resilient schools in the long term and to launch a new education technology playbook “Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all?”

file-pdf Full Playbook – Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all? file-pdf References file-pdf Appendix A – Instruments to assess availability and use of technology file-pdf Appendix B – List of reviewed studies file-pdf Appendix C – How may technology affect interactions among students, teachers, and content?

About the Authors

Alejandro j. ganimian, emiliana vegas, frederick m. hess.

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Essay About Technology and Innovation

Writing an essay on technology and innovation can be a little bit challenging. In fact, there are many different ways in which an essay might need to be re-written in order to make it more interesting, but in the end, the results will all be worth it. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of different types of essay that can be written, but for this particular article, we will be talking about an essay about technology and innovation.

Technology is something that can be studied for many different reasons, but generally, the idea behind it is that technology has brought about a number of different improvements to the world and that has made life a little bit easier. The best way to take full advantage of this type of improvement is to take a look at the different ways in which it has been able to do so.

For example, one way that people are taking advantage of technological advancements is by taking advantage of the Internet. The Internet has allowed a number of different people to interact with one another, and this interaction has led to many different changes in the world as a whole. This is why an essay about technology and innovation about the Internet can help you to take a look at the different areas that the Internet has affected in the past.

Another part of writing a good essay about technology and innovation is taking a look at the different places that the Internet has made its way into. For example, this might include an essay on technology and innovation about how the Internet has been able to improve communication between people.

However, there are also many different aspects of the Internet that could use some improvement in order to make them a little bit more efficient. There are a number of different software applications that can help with improving these areas, and these types of programs can make a huge difference to the way that a lot of people communicate with each other and to the way that they use the Internet.

Also, there are many different ways in which the Internet can be used in order to make a difference to the productivity of those who are using it. This can include an essay about technology and innovation about how the Internet can be used to allow people to take advantage of their time more effectively and increase the amount of time that they are using it.

One of the most important things that you can do when trying to write an essay about technology and innovation about the Internet is to take a look at the different types of tools that are available to use on the Internet. These tools can range from the type of software that you can download, to the type of software that you can install on your computer. in order to help make the Internet a little bit more efficient.

These are just a few examples of what is available, but you can find a number of different options for writing about technology and innovation by looking through the different types of essay examples that are available online. In addition, when you are doing this type of research online, it can be helpful to make sure that you have access to some of the essay examples that are available through the Internet as well, so that you can see how other people have written about the Internet and about the various types of changes that have been made to it in the past.

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These are the top 10 emerging technologies of 2023: Here's how they can impact the world

The 'Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2023' report lists this year's most impactful emerging technologies. Image:  Midjourney, Studio Miko

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• The World Economic Forum's newly-launched ' Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2023 ' report lists this year's most impactful emerging technologies.
• The Top 10 list includes environmental innovations, such as sustainable aviation fuels and wearable plant sensors.
• Other emerging technologies range from innovations harnessing the power of AI to reengineering molecular biology.

Technology is a relentless disruptor. It changes the context for how we live, work and play, redefines businesses and industries, and offers unprecedented solutions for addressing complex planetary and societal challenges. But in a quick-changing world where ideas come and go, what emerging technologies should raise to the top of the agenda for decision-makers, entrepreneurs and citizen in the years to come? The World Economic Forum’s ' Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2023 ' Report, in collaboration with Frontiers , brings together the perspectives of over 90 academics, industry leaders and futurists from 20 countries around the world, to discover the technologies most likely to impact people and the planet in the next three to five years.

From sustainable solutions that help combat climate change to step-change generative AI models, here are the top 10 emerging technologies most likely to improve our future lives.

Combatting the climate and nature crises

Sustainable aviation fuel.

The aviation industry generates between 2-3% of global CO2 emissions, but all regions of the world are set to see big increases by 2050. Unlike many other industries, the weight-to-power ratio of batteries makes electrification a challenge. That’s where sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) comes in. Synthetic fuels are made from biological sources like biomass or non-biological sources like CO2, and can be used with existing aviation infrastructure and equipment. Today, SAFs meet around 1% of aviation industry fuel demand, but this must increase to 13-15% by 2040 to help the industry reach net-zero emissions by 2050, says the report.

Wearable plant sensors

Global food production will need to increase by 70% by 2050 to feed a growing world population, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Crop monitoring is a key part of achieving this goal. Traditional soil testing and visual inspections of crops are expensive and time-consuming, giving rise to monitoring using low-resolution satellite data and later sensor-equipped drones and tractors.

However, micro-sized needle sensors embedded in individual plants could harvest a wealth of data to improve plant health and increase agricultural productivity, says the report. These devices monitor temperature, humidity, moisture and nutrient levels to help optimize crop yields, reduce water and fertilizer use and detect early signs of disease.

The Forum’s Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture Innovation (AI4AI) initiative aims to transform the agriculture sector using AI and other cutting-edge technologies.

Led by the Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) in India, the initiative has already helped more than 7000 chilli farmers increase their yields and reduce costs.

C4IR India is sharing its learnings with other centres in the C4IR Global Network, including Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Colombia.

Sustainable computing

Exponential growth in AI, cloud computing and other technologies requires bigger, more powerful and more plentiful data centre capacity. Data centres consume 1% of total global electricity production, but powering our increasingly data-hungry digital society means this is set to increase. Several technologies are emerging, aimed at making the goal of net-zero-energy data centres a reality, says the report. These include using water or dielectric liquid cooling to dissipate heat, alongside technologies that repurpose excess heat to warm buildings, heat water or for industrial processes.

Also, AI-enabled systems can analyze and optimize energy use in real-time, maximizing efficiency and performance – reducing energy consumption by as much as 40% at Google’s data centres. And making data processing and storage infrastructure modular and demand-based means systems like cloud and edge computing can be distributed across multiple devices, systems and locations to optimize energy use.

Have you read?

How emerging tech could mitigate emerging human crises, ‘tech for good’ had a very good year in 2022. here are 6 companies that led the way, how can technology help in a holistic approach to ensure inclusion, powered by artificial intelligence, generative ai.

Generative artificial intelligence models are fast becoming a part of everyday life. The models use complex algorithms to recognize and utilize patterns in data. The recent introduction of AI-based language models, like ChatGPT, has already impacted life at schools, universities and workplaces, but if used properly, such tools can enhance productivity and creative output. However, Gen AI technology goes beyond producing written texts, images and sound, with applications including drug design to target specific medical conditions, architecture and engineering. NASA engineers are developing AI systems to create lightweight space instruments, reducing development time and improving structural performance, for example.

AI in healthcare

Emerging AI-based technologies and machine learning tools could help the global healthcare sector both anticipate and better prepare for future pandemics or other challenges.

Such systems could help increase the efficiency of national and global healthcare systems to tackle health crises and improve access to healthcare. Innovations like this could also reduce treatment waiting times, by aligning treatment needs with available medical resources and increasing medical outreach, says the report.

The benefits of AI in healthcare could be magnified in developing countries, which often lack sufficient infrastructure and staff to provide widespread access to healthcare services.

How is the World Economic Forum creating guardrails for Artificial Intelligence?

In response to the uncertainties surrounding generative AI and the need for robust AI governance frameworks to ensure responsible and beneficial outcomes for all, the Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) has launched the AI Governance Alliance .

The Alliance will unite industry leaders, governments, academic institutions, and civil society organizations to champion responsible global design and release of transparent and inclusive AI systems.

Emerging Technologies in Health

Metaverse for mental health.

There’s been a lot of hype surrounding the metaverse, and we are a long way from this concept becoming a reality. That said, the virtual world can create shared digital spaces where people can meet each other socially and professionally. Virtual environments open up new opportunities to provide mental health treatments, covering a range of telemedicine applications, including prevention, diagnostics, therapy, education and research. Several gaming platforms have been established to help people with conditions like depression and anxiety or encourage mindfulness and meditation, for example.

Designer phages

Human, animal and plant microbiomes are home to vast communities of microbes that are crucial to each organism’s health. Recent advances in bioengineering allow scientists to engineer microbiomes to increase human and animal well-being and agricultural productivity. The technology centres around phages, which are viruses that identify and infect specific types of bacteria with genetic information, says the report. Bioengineers can reprogramme a phage’s genetic information so it transmits genetic instructions to bacteria to change how it functions, enabling microbiome-associated diseases to be targeted and treated.

Spatial omics

The human body is a collection of around 37.2 trillion cells that work together. To understand how microbiological processes like this work, scientists have developed a method called spatial omics, which combines advanced imaging techniques with sophisticated DNA sequencing processes to map biological processes at the molecular level. Using spatial omics, scientists can observe intricate details of cell architecture and biological processes that were previously unobservable, according to the report.

Engineering

Flexible batteries.

As electronic devices become ever more flexible, a more pliable type of battery is emerging to power them. Flexible batteries are made of lightweight materials that can be twisted, stretched, bent into shape and even coated onto carbon-based materials like carbon fibre or cloth. These rechargeable, bendable batteries are increasingly energizing growing markets – like roll-up computer screens, smart clothing and wearable electronics, including healthcare devices and biometric sensors, says the report.

Flexible neural electronics

Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) allow direct communication between the brain and external computers. So far, the technology has been based on rigid electronics and limited by the mechanical and geometrical mismatch with brain tissue. But breakthroughs in flexible electronics and more biocompatible materials mean a less invasive experience for patients.

BMI-type technologies are already in use to treat patients with epilepsy and with prosthetic limbs that use electrodes to connect with the nervous system.

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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Essay on Science and Technology for Students and Children

500+ words essay on science and technology.

Essay on Science and Technology: Science and technology are important parts of our day to day life. We get up in the morning from the ringing of our alarm clocks and go to bed at night after switching our lights off. All these luxuries that we are able to afford are a resultant of science and technology . Most importantly, how we can do all this in a short time are because of the advancement of science and technology only. It is hard to imagine our life now without science and technology. Indeed our existence itself depends on it now. Every day new technologies are coming up which are making human life easier and more comfortable. Thus, we live in an era of science and technology.

Essentially, Science and Technology have introduced us to the establishment of modern civilization . This development contributes greatly to almost every aspect of our daily life. Hence, people get the chance to enjoy these results, which make our lives more relaxed and pleasurable.

Benefits of Science and Technology

If we think about it, there are numerous benefits of science and technology. They range from the little things to the big ones. For instance, the morning paper which we read that delivers us reliable information is a result of scientific progress. In addition, the electrical devices without which life is hard to imagine like a refrigerator, AC, microwave and more are a result of technological advancement.

Furthermore, if we look at the transport scenario, we notice how science and technology play a major role here as well. We can quickly reach the other part of the earth within hours, all thanks to advancing technology.

In addition, science and technology have enabled man to look further than our planet. The discovery of new planets and the establishment of satellites in space is because of the very same science and technology. Similarly, science and technology have also made an impact on the medical and agricultural fields. The various cures being discovered for diseases have saved millions of lives through science. Moreover, technology has enhanced the production of different crops benefitting the farmers largely.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

India and Science and Technology

Ever since British rule, India has been in talks all over the world. After gaining independence, it is science and technology which helped India advance through times. Now, it has become an essential source of creative and foundational scientific developments all over the world. In other words, all the incredible scientific and technological advancements of our country have enhanced the Indian economy.

Looking at the most recent achievement, India successfully launched Chandrayaan 2. This lunar exploration of India has earned critical acclaim from all over the world. Once again, this achievement was made possible due to science and technology.

In conclusion, we must admit that science and technology have led human civilization to achieve perfection in living. However, we must utilize everything in wise perspectives and to limited extents. Misuse of science and technology can produce harmful consequences. Therefore, we must monitor the use and be wise in our actions.

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In a large, open space on the first floor of 750 Main Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a carbon-capture company is heating up molten salts to 600 degrees Celsius right next to a quantum computing company’s device for supercooling qubits. The difference is about 900 degrees across 15 feet.

It doesn’t take long in the tour of The Engine Accelerator to realize this isn’t your typical co-working space. Companies here are working at the extremes to develop new technologies with world-changing impact — what The Engine Accelerator’s leaders call “tough tech.”

Comprising four floors and 150,000 square feet next door to MIT’s campus, the new space offers startups specialized lab equipment, advanced machining, fabrication facilities, office space, and a range of startup support services.

The goal is to give young companies merging science and engineering all of the resources they need to move ideas from the lab bench to their own mass manufacturing lines.

“The infrastructure has always been a really important accelerant for getting these kinds of companies off and running,” The Engine Accelerator President Emily Knight says. “Now you can start a company and, on day one, start building. Real estate is such a big factor. Our thought was, let’s make this investment in the infrastructure for the founders. It’s an agile lease that enables them to be very flexible as they grow.”

Since the new facility opened its doors in the summer of 2022, the Accelerator has welcomed around 100 companies that employ close to 1,000 people. In addition to the space, members enjoy educational workshops on topics like fundraising and hiring, events, and networking opportunities that the Accelerator team hopes foster a sense of community among people working in the tough tech space overall.

“We’re not just advocates for the startups in the space,” Knight says. “We’re advocates for tough tech as a whole. We think it’s important for the state of Massachusetts to create a tough tech hub here, and we think it’s important for national competitiveness.”

Tough tech gets a home

The Engine was spun out of MIT in 2016 as a public benefit corporation with the mission of bridging the gap between discovery and commercialization. Since its inception, it has featured an investment component, now known as Engine Ventures, and a shared services component.

From the moment The Engine opened its doors to startups in its original headquarters on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, the services team got a firsthand look at the unique challenges faced by tough tech startups. After speaking with founders, they realized their converted office space would need more power, stronger floors, and full lab accommodations.

The team rose to the challenge. They turned a closet into a bio lab. They turned an unused wellness room into a laser lab. They managed to accommodate Commonwealth Fusion Systems when the founders informed them a 5,000-pound magnet would soon arrive for testing.

But supporting ambitious founders in their quest to build world-changing companies was always going to require a bigger boat. As early as 2017, MIT’s leaders were considering turning the old Polaroid building, which had sat empty next to MIT’s campus for nearly 20 years, into the new home for tough tech.

Speaking of tough, construction crews began the extensive building renovations for the Accelerator at the end of 2019, a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic. The team managed to avoid the worst of the supply chain disruptions, but they quickly learned the building has its quirks. Each floor is a different ceiling height, and massive pillars known as mushroom columns punctuate each floor.

Based on conversations with founders, The Engine’s Accelerator team outfitted the renovated building with office and co-working space, a full machine shop, labs for biology and chemistry work, an array of 3D printers, bike storage, and, perhaps most important, cold brew on tap.

“I think of the Accelerator as a really great Airbnb host rather than a landlord, where maybe you rented a bedroom in a large house, but you feel like you rented the whole thing because you have access to all kinds of amazing equipment,” says Bernardo Cervantes PhD ’20, co-founder of Concerto Biosciences, which is developing microbes for a variety of uses in human health and agriculture.

The Engine Accelerator’s team credits MIT leadership with helping them manage the project, noting that the MIT Environment, Health and Safety office was particularly helpful.

A week after the Accelerator opened its doors in August 2022, on a single sweltering day, 35 companies moved in. By 2023, the Accelerator was home to 55 companies. Since then, the Accelerator’s team has done everything they could to continue to grow.

“At one point, one of our team members came to me with her tail between her legs and sheepishly said, ‘I gave our office space to a startup,’” Knight recalls. “I said, ‘Yes! That means you get it! We don’t need an office — we can sit anywhere.’”

The first floor holds some of the largest machinery, including that molten salt device (developed by Mantel Capture) and the quantum computer (developed by Atlantic Quantum). On the next level, a machine shop and a fabrication space featuring every 3D printer imaginable offer ways for companies to quickly build prototype products or parts. Another floor is dubbed “the Avenue” and features a kitchen and tables for networking and serendipitous meetings. The Avenue is lined by huge garage doors that open to accommodate larger crowds for workshops and meeting spaces.

“Even though the founders are working in different spaces, we wanted to create an area where people can connect and run into each other and get help with 3D printing or hiring or anything else,” Knight says. “It fosters those casual interactions that are very important for startups.”

An ecosystem to change the world

Only about one-fifth of the companies in the Accelerator space are portfolio companies of Engine Ventures. The two entities operate separately, but they pool their shared learning about supporting tough tech, and Engine Ventures has an office in the Accelerator’s space.

Engine Ventures CEO Katie Rae sees it as a symbiotic partnership.

“We needed to have all these robust services for everyone in tough tech, not just the portfolio companies,” Rae says. “We’ll always work together and produce the Tough Tech Summit together because of our overarching missions. It’s very much like a rising tide lifts all boats. All of these companies are working to change the world in their own verticals, so we’re just focusing on the impact they’re trying to have and making that the story.”

Rae says MIT has helped both of The Engine’s teams think through the best way to support tough tech startups.

“Being a partner with MIT, which understands innovation and safety better than anyone, has allowed us to say yes to more things and have more flexibility,” Rae says. “If you’re going to go at breakneck speed to solve global problems, you better have a mentality of getting things done fast and safely, and I think that’s been a core tenet of The Engine.”

Meanwhile, Knight says her team hasn’t stopped learning from the tough tech community and will continue to adapt.

“ There’s just a waterfall of information coming from these companies,” Knight says. “It’s about iterating on our services to best support them, so we can go to people on our team and ask, ‘Can you learn to run this type of program, because we just learned these five founders need it?’ Every founder we know in the area has a badge so they can come in. We want to create a hub for tough tech within this Kendall Square area that’s already a hub in so many ways.”

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Will MicroLEDs Revolutionize Our Screens?

In the ever-evolving landscape of display technology, a new contender is set to redefine our visual experience: microLED technology. As we transition from LCD and OLED screens, microLED stands out as a beacon of innovation, promising unparalleled energy efficiency, luminosity and color depth.

Innovation and impact of microLED technology

MicroLED technology marks a decisive turning point, with a reduction in power consumption of up to 50%, according to the scientific journal Crystals . This remarkable energy efficiency opens up significant economic prospects in the smartwatch and augmented-reality (AR) sectors. According to the consulting firm Omdia , the smartwatch market is expected to reach $4 billion by 2030, while the AR market could rise to $16 billion—representing about 50% of microLED screens delivered that year.

These forecasts not only highlight the significant economic impact of microLED technology, but also its essential contribution to sustainable development by offering less energy-intensive display solutions for future technologies.

The core of microLED technology

Replacing sapphire substrates with silicon through nanowire technology constitutes a major innovation in the microLED field. By leveraging the well-established semiconductor processes that use silicon, nanowire-based microLED technology enhances screen visual performance. And when the entire LED control system is integrated directly into the circuit of these nanowires, it represents substantial savings in production and maintenance for the integrators and designers of these systems.

This transition, beyond breaking with conventional methods, also lays the foundation for a new display technology, characterized by increased precision and integration flexibility potential.

Advantages and impact

The practical advantages of nanowire-based microLED technology are profound, ranging from unparalleled energy efficiency to superior luminosity and enhanced color depth. By integrating red, green and blue sub-pixels within each nanowire-based microLED, the technology achieves a quality previously unattainable—while significantly reducing energy consumption.

This technology leap paves the way for smaller, cost-effective and environmentally sustainable electronic devices. The impact extends across the tech industry, promising to revolutionize consumer electronics, automotive displays and even emerging sectors like AR by delivering higher-quality, more scalable displays.

Expanding the reach of nanowire-based microLED technology

This unparalleled scalability makes it ideal for everything from the compact screens of smartwatches and smartphones to the vast canvases of TV walls and sophisticated automotive displays. Notably, nanowire-based microLEDs are catalyzing a shift toward revolutionary device designs, including screens that are not only flexible but also transparent.

This capability signals a future where technology seamlessly integrates into our environments, enhancing everything from everyday wearables to immersive experiences like AR and advanced interfaces. As we venture into this future, nanowire-based microLED technology stands as a pillar of innovation, promising to reshape our interaction with the digital world across multiple platforms.

Navigating the path to mass adoption

The path to the widespread adoption of nanowire-based microLED technology is fraught with complexities, from scaling up production processes to achieving cost efficiencies that challenge the status quo of display manufacturing. These challenges, however, have not deterred the resolve of the industry. Fueled by a collective ambition to pioneer the next wave of display technology, stakeholders of all types—from deep techs like Aledia to established tech giants—are investing heavily in research and development.

These collaborative efforts are vital for overcoming technical challenges, including ensuring the highly accurate placement of each microLED on the substrate, and for improving screen durability. Innovations in manufacturing techniques and material science are progressively lowering the barriers to entry, promising a future where nanowire-based microLED displays become a staple in consumer electronics and beyond. The industry’s perseverance serves a clear objective: to unlock the full potential of nanowire-based microLED technology and make it accessible to a global audience.

A vision for the future

Nanowire-based microLED technology represents a paradigm shift in the world of display solutions, offering a glimpse into a future where displays are not only brighter and more efficient but also more scalable and immersive than ever before. As we stand on the brink of this technological revolution, the promise of nanowire-based microLEDs to transform our visual experiences and drive innovation across the tech industry is clear and compelling.

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Pierre Laboisse is president and CEO of Aledia.

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Science and Technology Will Change Our Future Essay

Introduction, papers are replaced by computer interface, credit card type media, changes in travel, lowering the cost of living, works cited.

Science and technology have continued to play a central role in providing means through which people improve their well-being and health, alleviate poverty, and define themselves as a nation and people. Many societies are built on a firm foundation of science and technology and irrevocably dependent on them. As such, science and technology will continue to play a major role in shaping our lives and nation. It will change how people communicate and interact with each other, how people work, travel and how students learn. Technological innovation in the next 50 years will rival innovation that took place in the past 400 years.

According to Reuters, businesses and schools will go paperless as papers are replaced by computer interfaces built into furniture and walls. Advances in communication, energy distribution, and storage in consumer products and businesses will support a technology known as “room ware” that will support this breakthrough. Offices Tables, walls, and cafeteria tables will double as terminals that will allow a person to write down the idea and send it to a personal desk or computer located somewhere else. School and office Walls and windows will have the capability to display maps and direction commands to help locate particular offices, staff, classrooms, etc ( Reuters, 2009). As offices/schools go paperless, the environment will benefit from reduced dependent on the tree for paper production.

After a long period of stability as the main choice of storage DVD and CD, media will be replaced by credit card type media by 2015. As the internet becomes more flexible coupled with the availability of cheap massive storage space, high data transfer rate, people will no longer need physical storage media to store data. File storage and access will be done remotely due to the convenience brought by the internet. Movies will only be available for download from the internet and that the user will need to access code to get movies and data. (B, 2009)

Innovation in Science and Technology will also change travel. People will be traveling on sky car that will be cruising comfortably at a speed of 300Miles per hour using regular fuel. The sky car will be equipped with onboard computers and will be fully automated. This means that one will not need a license to fly the sky car. The sky car will be equipped with redundant engines for safety purposes just in case the main engine fails (FutureCars.com, 2010). The cost of a new sky car will be equal to that of a luxury car once mass production begins. Sky car will be cost less to main and will launch and land at a pad the size of the dining room. Using sky car, people will be able to avoid traffic, spending tickets and save travel time.

Other speculations about the future include the availability of cheap, advanced personal equipment for self-diagnosis for illnesses that currently require a costly medical diagnosis. This will reduce the cost of health care and health insurance, hence lowering the cost of living. It will also lead to better health. Robots will also become part of mainstream life, in form of interactive toys, household items like carpets and pets will require no maintenance (Mooneyham, 2005).

The future will be shaped greatly by continued innovation in science and technology. Offices will go paperless and papers will be replaced by a computer interface inbuilt on office furniture and walls. DVD and CD media will be replaced by credit card types of media as people turn to online data storage and access. Technology innovation will also have a great impact on travel with the introduction of sky cars, which will result in reduced travel time and traffic congestion. New health equipment will help people to diagnose themselves for diseases, hence reducing the cost of health care, leading to better health.

Reuters. (2009). 2018 milestone: “Paperless Offices”. Web.

B, D. (2009). The Future of – Online/Remote Data Storage. Web.

Future Diagnostics Group. (2009). Nuclear Medicin. Web.

FutureCars.com. (2010). Moller Skycar – Long Time Coming. Web.

Mooneyham, J. (2005). Substantial regeneration treatments for various organs. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, November 2). Science and Technology Will Change Our Future. https://ivypanda.com/essays/science-and-technology-will-change-our-future/

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IvyPanda . 2023. "Science and Technology Will Change Our Future." November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/science-and-technology-will-change-our-future/.

1. IvyPanda . "Science and Technology Will Change Our Future." November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/science-and-technology-will-change-our-future/.

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IvyPanda . "Science and Technology Will Change Our Future." November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/science-and-technology-will-change-our-future/.

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• “Technology Run Amok” and “Being Prepared for Technology Snow Days”: Articles' Analysis

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Amanda Hoover

Students Are Likely Writing Millions of Papers With AI

Students have submitted more than 22 million papers that may have used generative AI in the past year, new data released by plagiarism detection company Turnitin shows.

A year ago, Turnitin rolled out an AI writing detection tool that was trained on its trove of papers written by students as well as other AI-generated texts. Since then, more than 200 million papers have been reviewed by the detector, predominantly written by high school and college students. Turnitin found that 11 percent may contain AI-written language in 20 percent of its content, with 3 percent of the total papers reviewed getting flagged for having 80 percent or more AI writing. (Turnitin is owned by Advance, which also owns Condé Nast, publisher of WIRED.) Turnitin says its detector has a false positive rate of less than 1 percent when analyzing full documents.

ChatGPT’s launch was met with knee-jerk fears that the English class essay would die . The chatbot can synthesize information and distill it near-instantly—but that doesn’t mean it always gets it right. Generative AI has been known to hallucinate , creating its own facts and citing academic references that don’t actually exist. Generative AI chatbots have also been caught spitting out biased text on gender and race . Despite those flaws, students have used chatbots for research, organizing ideas, and as a ghostwriter . Traces of chatbots have even been found in peer-reviewed, published academic writing .

Teachers understandably want to hold students accountable for using generative AI without permission or disclosure. But that requires a reliable way to prove AI was used in a given assignment. Instructors have tried at times to find their own solutions to detecting AI in writing, using messy, untested methods to enforce rules , and distressing students. Further complicating the issue, some teachers are even using generative AI in their grading processes.

Detecting the use of gen AI is tricky. It’s not as easy as flagging plagiarism, because generated text is still original text. Plus, there’s nuance to how students use gen AI; some may ask chatbots to write their papers for them in large chunks or in full, while others may use the tools as an aid or a brainstorm partner.

Students also aren't tempted by only ChatGPT and similar large language models. So-called word spinners are another type of AI software that rewrites text, and may make it less obvious to a teacher that work was plagiarized or generated by AI. Turnitin’s AI detector has also been updated to detect word spinners, says Annie Chechitelli, the company’s chief product officer. It can also flag work that was rewritten by services like spell checker Grammarly, which now has its own generative AI tool . As familiar software increasingly adds generative AI components, what students can and can’t use becomes more muddled.

Detection tools themselves have a risk of bias. English language learners may be more likely to set them off; a 2023 study found a 61.3 percent false positive rate when evaluating Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exams with seven different AI detectors. The study did not examine Turnitin’s version. The company says it has trained its detector on writing from English language learners as well as native English speakers. A study published in October found that Turnitin was among the most accurate of 16 AI language detectors in a test that had the tool examine undergraduate papers and AI-generated papers.

Medea Giordano

Nena Farrell

Schools that use Turnitin had access to the AI detection software for a free pilot period, which ended at the start of this year. Chechitelli says a majority of the service’s clients have opted to purchase the AI detection. But the risks of false positives and bias against English learners have led some universities to ditch the tools for now. Montclair State University in New Jersey announced in November that it would pause use of Turnitin’s AI detector. Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University did the same last summer.

“This is hard. I understand why people want a tool,” says Emily Isaacs, executive director of the Office of Faculty Excellence at Montclair State. But Isaacs says the university is concerned about potentially biased results from AI detectors, as well as the fact that the tools can’t provide confirmation the way they can with plagiarism. Plus, Montclair State doesn’t want to put a blanket ban on AI, which will have some place in academia. With time and more trust in the tools, the policies could change. “It’s not a forever decision, it’s a now decision,” Isaacs says.

Chechitelli says the Turnitin tool shouldn’t be the only consideration in passing or failing a student. Instead, it’s a chance for teachers to start conversations with students that touch on all of the nuance in using generative AI. “People don’t really know where that line should be,” she says.

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Case Study: How Aggressively Should a Bank Pursue AI?

• Thomas H. Davenport
• George Westerman

A Malaysia-based CEO weighs the risks and potential benefits of turning a traditional bank into an AI-first institution.

Siti Rahman, the CEO of Malaysia-based NVF Bank, faces a pivotal decision. Her head of AI innovation, a recent recruit from Google, has a bold plan. It requires a substantial investment but aims to transform the traditional bank into an AI-first institution, substantially reducing head count and the number of branches. The bank’s CFO worries they are chasing the next hype cycle and cautions against valuing efficiency above all else. Siti must weigh the bank’s mixed history with AI, the resistance to losing the human touch in banking services, and the risks of falling behind in technology against the need for a prudent, incremental approach to innovation.

Two experts offer advice: Noemie Ellezam-Danielo, the chief digital and AI strategy at Société Générale, and Sastry Durvasula, the chief information and client services officer at TIAA.

Siti Rahman, the CEO of Malaysia-headquartered NVF Bank, hurried through the corridors of the university’s computer engineering department. She had directed her driver to the wrong building—thinking of her usual talent-recruitment appearances in the finance department—and now she was running late. As she approached the room, she could hear her head of AI innovation, Michael Lim, who had joined NVF from Google 18 months earlier, breaking the ice with the students. “You know, NVF used to stand for Never Very Fast,” he said to a few giggles. “But the bank is crawling into the 21st century.”

• Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a visiting scholar at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s AI practice. He is a coauthor of All-in on AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023).
• George Westerman is a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and a coauthor of Leading Digital (HBR Press, 2014).

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Administrator explores expanding TSA’s capabilities with innovation partners

Administrator Pekoske and other TSA leaders met with innovation partners to explore ways TSA can make the most of commercial technology to get advanced solutions in the hands of employees faster.

TSA’s collaboration with Silicon Valley and federal partners aligns with the first strategic priority in the Administrator’s Intent 3.0 to “improve security and safeguard the transportation systems by being agile, innovative, rapidly deploying new solutions, and maximizing the impact of our resources.”

As an agile agency, TSA must efficiently and rapidly apply innovative processes and technology to outmatch complex and evolving threats to the nation’s transportation systems.

“Listening to the work we do with our tech partners and seeing the teams at these airports was so energizing. Looking forward to accomplishing more in the years to come!” said Administrator Pekoske via Twitter/X.

For much of the trip, the Administrator was accompanied by a who’s who of TSA leaders – Chief Innovation Officer Steven Parker; Deputy Chief Innovation Officer Andy Haskins; Enterprise Support Deputy Executive Assistant Administrator Kim Hutchinson; Chief Information Officer Yemi Oshinnaiye; Counselor to the Administrator Faiza Khan; Requirements, Capabilities and Analysis (RCA) Senior Technical Advisor Charlie Hall; RCA Identity Management Manager Jason Lim and RCA Innovation Task Force Acting Director Anca Alexandrescu.

The team embarked on a series of visits with commercial and federal partners to discuss new technologies and how innovation, creativity and agility impact mission success.  

The team visited Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Apple, Google, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), In-Q-Tel (IQT) and met with Stanford University Professor Dr. Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao, an expert in innovation and organizational behavior. Pekoske also engaged with TSA employees at California’s Monterey Regional Airport (MRY), San Francisco International Airport (SFO), Oakland International Airport (OAK), and San José Mineta International Airport (SJU).

Center for Homeland Security Defense and Security

Pekoske participated in a fireside chat on building a culture of innovation at the Center for Homeland Security Defense and Security – Alumni Professional Exchange event at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. LE/FAMS Executive Director Serge Potopov moderated the event.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Pekoske visited the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a federally-funded science and technology research and development center in Livermore, California, to discuss the lab’s capabilities and potential areas for collaboration.

Google, Apple

The Administrator engaged with Google and Apple executives to address states adopting the use of state-issued digital IDs and their acceptance at the security checkpoint during the identity verification process. TSA is working with the tech giants so passengers can identify themselves with IDs stored on their phones at airports.              

Defense Innovation Unit

Then it was off to Mountain View, California, where Pekoske met with DIU Director Doug Beck and Deputy Director Kirstin Riesbeck. The meeting focused on DIU’s capabilities for fielding and scaling commercial technology as well as areas for potential collaboration with TSA.

DIU is the only Department of Defense (DoD) organization focused exclusively on sourcing and evaluating emerging technologies that address critical gaps and scaling commercial solutions to deliver strategic impact at speed across the U.S. military. The Administrator added his signature to the DIU Innovation Wall, which also features the signatures of defense secretaries Ash Carter, Jim Mattis and Lloyd Austin.

“DIU is excited to share lessons learned, successes and opportunities accelerating commercial technology into DoD with our partners across the U.S. government,” said Beck. “Together, we can deliver strategic impact for the nation.” In-Q-Tel

The Administrator then met with IQT leadership at their Menlo Park, California, office to discuss the company’s capability to pilot and adopt commercial solutions in support of TSA’s mission. IQT, a strategic global investor, partners with non-traditional and emerging investment-backed companies to adapt cutting edge commercial technology for the U.S. government.

“We were glad to spend time with TSA and a number of IQT’s portfolio companies and others in Silicon Valley, identifying opportunities for TSA and other government agencies to leverage innovation from the venture capital and startup communities,” said IQT CEO Steve Bowsher. “We look forward to supporting TSA’s work and enhancing their connections to the private sector.”

Pekoske affirmed TSA’s commitment to engage with IQT for rapid access to advanced capabilities and accelerated adoption in support of TSA’s critical mission needs.

DIU and IQT represent two key pathways to meeting the challenge of government agencies adopting commercial technologies at the rate of the private sector and breaking down systemic barriers along the way to inform repeatable processes.

Stanford University Graduate School of Business

At Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, the Administrator met with Dr. Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao, co-director of the Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program and professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources.

Rao discussed leading organizational change, building customer-focused cultures, organization design and empowering the workforce. He emphasized the importance of shaping organizational culture by applying a people-first approach, something Pekoske has long embraced as shown by his strong commitment to TSA employees.

TSA Ventures

Following the visits with DIU, IQT and Stanford, the Administrator participated in a TSA Ventures strategy discussion led by the Chief Innovation Officer and facilitated by BMNT, a global advisory firm for government and federal partners. TSA Ventures is one of the lines of effort described in the TSA Innovation Doctrine and seeks to complement the agency’s more traditional acquisition path by accelerating dual use commercial technologies to quickly get state-of-the-art solutions in the hands of TSOs.

TSA Lift Cells

Finally, Pekoske engaged with TSA’s Bay Area Lift Cells from SFO, OAK and SJU, who gathered to build relationships and work collectively on problem statements to bring to the TSA 2024 Lift Summit at TSA headquarters. “Lift Cells” are TSA groups that help the agency solve problems while building on the agency’s culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. 

Pekoske applauded the Lift Cells for their work in helping the agency explore solutions to the everyday challenges employees face. “The first three words of our vision statement say, ‘an agile security agency’ and we can’t be agile if we’re not taking the input from the people we have on the frontlines of the organization… you obviously see things that might be done more effectively, more efficiently, better for customers. We need to know those things and try to get those out. If we didn’t have [your input] we wouldn’t be the agile agency we need to be,” said Pekoske.

The trip highlighted TSA’s commitment to maintaining a vision for a secure future through investments, partnerships, innovation, and research and development.

Parker summed up what the Silicon Valley tour accomplished for TSA. “An important objective of this trip was to further TSA’s adoption of a ‘fast follower’ strategy to harness commercial technologies,” he said. “We are going to continue to collaborate with our innovation partners and tap into their capabilities and experience working with the private sector.”

For more information on TSA’s enterprise innovation efforts, please visit the new Chief Innovation Officer website .

From TSA Strategic Communications & Public Affairs