Hong Kong needs more than good infrastructure to create a thriving internet economy
Waltraut Ritter says the government’s promotion of an internet economy through better hardware is missing the more vital elements of skills, mindset and networks
The government recently staged its first Internet Economy summit. Why now? Globally, the annual Internet Governance Forum and the OECD Internet Economy summits have provided a stage for governments and other stakeholders to discuss the data-driven internet economy.
In his speech, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said Hong Kong’s world-class infrastructure is a good basis to harness the internet economy, while Xu Lin, deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration, said China has now reached nearly 50 per cent internet penetration, providing a historic opportunity for a transformational upgrade.
How China’s digital push is changing the face of the economy
Without doubt, the internet is a critical piece of infrastructure underpinning the economy and society, but today’s discussions on the data-driven economy go beyond infrastructure and are about the skills and mindset, capabilities, networks, and innovation systems needed to turn data into insight, thereby creating knowledge-based capital.
The migration of economic and social activities to the internet is possible through the dramatically lower cost of data collection, storage, processing and computing power. How this data will be governed is a policy issue, not an infrastructural one.
Most companies’ business models centre around using scattered data to enhance and predict customer behaviour.
