Work Study and Industrial Engineering
Introduction To survive in the current competitive and global environment, it is important for the organization to continuously look at ways to improve efficiency and productivity. It needs to discover a new, easy and cost-effective way of manufacturing or providing services. Work study and industrial engineering play important role in job simplification, job design, job […]
Top Six Economic Consequences of the Refugee Crisis
The picture of Aylan Kurdi, a six year old Syrian refugee who died when his boat capsized as his family was illegally migrating to Europe shook the world in 2015. Germany and most European countries opened their borders to refugees from Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Almost everybody considers it a great humanitarian gesture. Nobody should […]
Formulating Information Security and Data Protection Policies When Firms Go Digital
The Paradigm Shift Needed as the World Transitions from Analogue to Digital Information Security and Data Protection are central to any organization’s tech policies and more so, when Digitalization happens, as then the whole organizational processes and methodologies are entirely virtual making them more vulnerable to Data Theft. Indeed, having effective Information Security and Data […]
Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective
The concept of insurance came about in the business field to cover the risk of loss of assets due to natural and manmade disasters as well as other calamities. In the current times, Organizations especially those which are dependant heavily on IT systems have begun to look at preventive steps as well as plan for […]
Do’s and Dont’s during ERP Implementation
ERP systems are complex, time consuming and expensive. Instances of failure of ERP projects abound including some high ticket failures such as Hershey, (largest chocolate maker of USA), where a SAP implementation was abandoned after three years. There are various “Dos” and “Dont’s” effecting success or failures of an ERP implementation. Some of critical success […]
The urge to create a perfect world has been there throughout the ages. However, whereas earlier attempts at doing so were guided by people with hands on effort and intimate contact with the on the ground realities, the present move towards using technology is often misplaced as it focuses on using tools like social media without actually getting down to the nuts and bolts of on the ground action.
In other words, the problems being faced by the world need concerted action that is bottom up and which involves action from those working directly with the victims instead of top down approaches using social media that are out of tune with the ground realities. Of course, this does not mean to say that technology cannot solve any problem, as there are many examples of using technology as a means of spreading awareness and knowledge.
The point here is that technology requires human action in concert with each other and not necessarily one without the other.
The other aspect of trying to solve all problems using technology is that the internet can do only that much and not more. This means that while the internet is good for bringing together people and as can be seen in the positive impact that it had on building better lives for many, it is indeed an agent of change. However, the urge to fix everything using the internet alone must be resisted solely because it has its limitations in that geographical considerations and the need to have on the ground presence are factors that the internet cannot solve. Further, there is the added aspect of the digital divide, which means that the majority of the citizens in the world do not have access to the internet, and hence, the limits to what technology can accomplish are made plainly evident here.
The third aspect is that the proponents of the lets fix everything using technology aspire for a utopian situation that resembles absolute perfectionism. What these well meaning advocates forget is that complexity and ambiguity as well as opacity and imperfection are built into the world and hence, aspiring to social good must take into account all these factors.
In other words, the human condition can be improved only through sustained and concerted effort that takes time and not the kind of instant solution based model that is proposed. Apart from this, the fact that technology is value neutral means that it can be used for good as well as for bad. Hence, the temptation to advance technological solutions for all problems might backfire because of the same technology falling into the wrong hands to create havoc.
Finally, we must make it clear that this article is not a pessimistic one which dismisses technology altogether. Just that we would like to make it clear that striving to use technology to solve all problems must be based on realistic assumptions and as the subsequent articles detail, the internet can indeed be used to deliver infinite progress provided some of the conditions discussed here are met.
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Continuous Improvement and Business Process Re-Engineering
February 12, 2025
