Digitalization: Challenges on the path to a better living
Digitalization refers to the way in which many domains of social life are restructured around digital communication and media infrastructures. [1]
There are two existing terms that correlate with digitalization. Digitization consists of taking encoding information so that computers can store, process, and transmit such information. Digital Transformation can be understood as a customer-driven strategic business transformation that requires cross-cutting organizational change as well as the implementation of digital technologies. [2]
Converting from analog to digital is central to all three processes and can impose certain challenges to individuals, organizations and societies in general.
Organizations turn to the Internet in order to magnify the visibility of the company through tools such as online stores, social networks, blogs, corporate pages, etc. [3]
Individuals access digital technologies in order to connect with other people, share information and files, and find entertainment and socializing opportunities. Digital technologies, in this context, transform the lives of individual users in accordance with the types of technologies they will use, the manner in which they will be used and the level of responsibility that comes with it. [4]
SDG 9, to a large extent, encompasses the aims of digitalization through the efforts to foster innovation and upgrade the technological capabilities in all countries. Accordingly, the UN vowed to significantly increase access to information, communications technology and the Internet in general in the least developed countries.
In progressive societies, on the other hand, the overall performance in regard to the engagement with digital technologies varies. The European Commission has been monitoring and measuring EU Member States’ digital competitiveness in DESI (Digital Economy and Society Index) reports since 2014. The majority of DESI indicators come from the surveys of Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. [5]
The DESI analysis examines broadband connectivity, digital skills, use of the internet, digitization of businesses, digital public services, the ICT sector and its R&D spending, as well as the Member States’ use of Horizon 2020 funds. [6]
According to the 2019 report, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark scored the highest and are among the global leaders in digitalization. They are followed by the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Ireland, Estonia and Belgium. [7]
The 2018 DESI analysis identified a category of low performing countries consisted of 9 Member States. These are Slovakia, Cyprus, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania. [8]
Nearly all of the low-performing countries listed in the 2018 DESI report are also the poorest EU Member States [9], which opens a question about the correlation between the two.
According to Artem Ermolaev, CIO of the Moscow Government, digitalization is an immensely important factor in achieving a better standard of living. Ensuring economic development through personal development and entrepreneurship is the key reason why Russia, in 2018, began extensively investing in the country’s digitalization. [10]
Ermolaev’s initiative, as well as the seemingly impeccable portfolio of EU countries that are simultaneously leaders on the grounds of economic growth and the use of digital technologies, must serve as an example to nations who are far behind in the global race for digitalization.
By investing more effort in building a strong digitalized structure, to be fully utilized by the following generations, improved material living conditions of the population and the country’s overall prosperity will very likely be secured and maintained by those nations in the years to come.
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