So recently I’ve been travelling for a bit after taking some time off in August. But after a short spell of flu I am back online and looking to point out interesting developments in the areas of ICT4D, mobile technology and technology enabled markets.

Below I am bringing to your attention a program from the Telecom TV series “The Bottom Line” and Ethan Zuckerman’s presentation from the Ars Electronica 2009 in Linz, Austria. I thought that the two video pieces fit together because they highlight the changing concept of infrastructure in the context of pervasive information and telecommunication technologies, and its complexity.

“The Bottom Line ” stresses the point that previously infrastructure used to be understood by most as buildings, roads, railways, shipping and airline routes, pipelines, financial services; and by some as communication networks, landline and wireless networks, data centres, computing power, software, routers, bandwidth, the Internet and so on. Currently, all these concepts of infratructure are converging. Mobile systems are connecting roads, the vehicles travelling on them and the stocks they are transporting. Mobile money is facilitating the flow of these stocks. The world is changing by the infrastructure getting smarter. The transformation provides a promise of a much more integrated world but also it introduces challenges to network operators and service providers.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

The presentation by Ethan Zuckerman from the Ars Electronica 2009 held in Linz, Austria also sets off with infrastructure as its starting point. Mr Zuckerman considers early attempts to map the Internet as the “electronic super highway”. He points out that currently the idea of mapping the Internet by means of tracing the whereabouts of physical infrastructure is outdated. Instead, he considers the concept of the Cloud and presents the idea of mapping the Internet by means of mapping the flows of technology use, as well as the lack thereof. Mr Zuckerman points out that the perceived level of globalization diverges from the actual level of out-of-context, non-local information we tend to seek. He suggests that there are areas of the world e.g. Nigeria, receiving far inadequate attention by information users and providers.

Vodpod videos no longer available.