Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, wrote an article recently for the Financial Times (subscription required, but the link below might still be working).
He starts promulgating the democratizing effect of free access to information (over the Internet). He then goes on to, rightly, point out how much more growth there is and how the mobile should be the main access to the Internet in developing nations (see quote below).
Yeah!
Overall, the article is a subtle push at carriers (data and voice) to keep the ‘Net open. Free access to info leads to openness and learning for all, the closing of the knowledge gap, freedom from top-down mass-think, and new ways of growing.
A nice, if light, article.
Go, Open Internet.
Link[thanks, Cristina B]: FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment – Let more of the world access the internet.
It is for this reason, I believe, that internet access via mobile telephony will have such an important part to play in helping close the knowledge divide between rich and poor.
Mobile phones are cheaper than PCs, there are three times more of them, growing at twice the speed, and they increasingly have internet access. What is more, the World Bank estimates that more than two-thirds of the world’s population lives within range of a mobile phone network. Mobile is going to be the next big internet phenomenon. It holds the key to greater access for everyone – with all the benefits that entails.
