World Population day is an annual event, observed on July 11th every year to raise the awareness of global population issues. The event which was established by the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme in 1989 was however inspired by public interest when the world's population reached an approximate of five billion in July, 1999. However, on Monday, October 31st, the world's population was projected to hit a remarkable figure of 7 billion.
According to the report released by the United Nations Population Funds (UNFPA), the international development agency responsible for the promotion of the rights of every person towards enjoying a life of health and equal opportunity, it states that,
"... with planning and the right investment in people now - to empower them to make choices that are not only good for themselves but for our global commons - our world of 7 billion can have thriving, sustainable cities, productive labor forces that can fuel economic growth, youth populations that contribute to the well-being of economies and societies, and a generation of older people who are healthy and actively engaged in the social and economic affairs of their communities".
Babatunde Osotimehin, Nigeria born Executive Director of UNFPA, concludes by saying:
"this “is a challenge, an opportunity and a call to action".
In response to this challenge and call to action, Hyperia Limited, as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility and in furtherance to its resolve to make fast and cheap Internet Access readily available to everyone in Nigeria, writes on the World Population and Information Technology.
A major use of technology is, and has been, to accommodate the growth of populations, and to remove the recognition of the importance of living within the carrying capacity of the environment. Albert A. Bartlett.
In nearly every corner of the world, from Lagos to Accra, Mumbai to Madrid, Washington to Ottawa, one cannot enter a café or walk down the street without seeing someone talking, texting, or surfing the Internet on their cell phones, laptops or tablet PCs. Information Technology (IT) has become ubiquitous and is changing every aspect of how people live their lives.
Recent advances in our ability to communicate and process information in digital form— a series of developments sometimes described as an “IT revolution”—are reshaping the economies and societies of many countries around the world.
The growth of information technology has sparked rapid economic growth and is changing the way people live, learn, and work. While technology is no "silver bullet" for the problems of the developing world, information and communications technology can be powerful democratizing forces, offering greater economic access to capital, allowing remote areas to overcome geographic boundaries, reducing educational disparities, and preventing cultural alienation, a risk that the divide between nations will grow if we fail to ensure that all nations have the opportunity to participate fully in the network economy and society.
Information Technology (IT) is a driving factor in the process of globalization. Improvements in the early 1990s in computer hardware, software, and telecommunications greatly increased people’s ability to access information and economic potential. While advancements in Internet-based tools over the past five to ten years, such as social networking websites, twitter, and other Web2.0 applications are changing the way people use and share information for personal, political, and commercial purposes. These developments have facilitated efficiency gains in all sectors of the economy. IT drives the innovative use of resources to promote new products and ideas across nations and cultures, regardless of geographic location. Creating efficient and effective channels to exchange information, IT has been the catalyst for global integration.
Products based upon, or enhanced by, information technology are used in nearly every aspect of life in contemporary industrial societies. The spread of IT and its applications has been extraordinarily rapid. Just 30 years ago, for example, the use of desktop personal computers was still limited to a fairly small number of technologically advanced people. The overwhelming majority of people still produced documents with typewriters, which permitted no manipulation of text and offered no storage.
Twenty years ago, large and bulky mobile telephones were carried only by a small number of users in just a few U.S. cities. According to a 2013 International Telecoms Union (ITU) World Report, there were 6.8 billion cell phone subscriptions worldwide at the end of 2012. Global mobile cellular penetration reached 96 percent in 2012 (ICT Facts and Figures, 2013). In some developing countries, mobile phones are used by more people than the fixed line telephone network.
But perhaps most dramatically, before two decades ago, only scientists were using (or had even heard about) the Internet, the World Wide Web was not up and running, and the browsers that help users navigate the Web had not even been invented yet. Today, of course, the Internet and the Web have transformed commerce, creating entirely new ways for retailers and their customers to make transactions, for businesses to manage the flow of production inputs and market products, and for job seekers and job recruiters to find one another. According to ITU World Report 2013, the total amount of users reached more than 2.7 billion (39 percent of the world’s population) by 2013.
The news industry was dramatically transformed by the emergence of numerous Internet-enabled news-gathering and dissemination outlets. Websites, blogs, instant messaging systems, e-mail, social networking sites and other Internet-based communication systems have made it much easier for people with common interests to to connect, exchange information, and collaborate with each other. Education at all levels is continually transforming thanks to innovations in communication, education, and presentation software. Websites now serve as a primary source of information and analysis for the masses.
Globalization accelerates the change of technology. Every day it seems that a new technological innovation is being created. The pace of change occurs so rapidly many people are always playing catch up, trying to purchase or update their new devices. Technology is now the forefront of the modern world creating new jobs, innovations, and networking sites to allow individuals to connect globally. The timeline below shows the rapid transformation of how technology has accelerated within the last 20 years to 2012.
18 years ago: Internet commercialized
17 years ago: first mobile phone with Internet connectivity
15 years ago: Google named the search engine of choice by PC magazine
12 years ago: Blackberry launched
9 years ago: Facebook launched
7 years ago: Twitter launched
6 years ago: iPhone, the first of the smart phones, introduced
5 years ago: Groupon introduced
2 years ago: 17 million smart tablets sold — estimated that 100 + million by 2014
1 year ago: Google Glass announced
Every 60 seconds (so it seems): new apps, tailored to users’ specific needs created
Back at home here in Nigeria, just as there has been an increase in the world population, so also there has been a corresponding increase in the country's population. Taking into consideration the country's population between 2000 and 2011, the country's population increased from 142,895,600 to 155,215,573 according to the ITU. The internet population users also grew rapidly from 200,000 users in 2000 to 5,000,000 in 2006. In 2009, the population of internet users soared to 23,982,200 while in 2011, there was an estimated 45,039,711 internet users. As at 31st December, 2012, there was an estimated 6,630,200 facebook users in Nigeria (Source: ITU).
With this set of statistics, Nigeria is being ranked amongst the 20 top countries that use the internet. According to the usage statistics on the top nations on the Internet, Internet World Stat, Nigeria occupies the 11th position, just immediately after France, which has Internet population of 50.29 million. Nigeria also comes ahead of Mexico. with Internet population of 42 million. This rating means that two per cent of global Internet population of 2.29 billion people are Nigerians. On a population estimate of 170.12 million people, Nigeria’s Internet penetration ratio was put at 26.5 per cent. This means that 26.5 persons out of every 100 Nigerians use the Internet.
With the decreasing costs of smartphones and tablets, we are seeing a whole new population accessing the Internet. Today, a teacher can purchase an Android tablet and bring unprecedented amounts of information into the classroom. Whether through more prevalent network connections like the fiber-optic links connecting Nigeria and Africa to the rest of the world, ever more creative software connecting people online, or the vast amounts of Web-based content now accessible to millions, technology is getting into a position to help educate the world. And learning is increasingly possible online: there are vast amounts of free information on the Web, from Wikipedia to millions of books accessible to all. Or middle- and high school-level YouTube classes and tutorial videos, and the interest is there. So in ways that were inconceivable only a few years ago, useful educational materials are spreading across the planet — and the cost of access is declining markedly.
However, there is still much work ahead of us and great opportunities to accelerate this access to information and Hyperia Limited is proud not only in taking up this challenge but also at providing feasible solutions to it. With our range of products and services readily available at your disposal, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
With the decreasing costs of smartphones and tablets, we are seeing a whole new population accessing the Internet. Today, a teacher can purchase an Android tablet and bring unprecedented amounts of information into the classroom. Whether through more prevalent network connections like the fiber-optic links connecting Nigeria and Africa to the rest of the world, ever more creative software connecting people online, or the vast amounts of Web-based content now accessible to millions, technology is getting into a position to help educate the world. And learning is increasingly possible online: there are vast amounts of free information on the Web, from Wikipedia to millions of books accessible to all. Or middle- and high school-level YouTube classes and tutorial videos, and the interest is there. So in ways that were inconceivable only a few years ago, useful educational materials are spreading across the planet — and the cost of access is declining markedly.
However, there is still much work ahead of us and great opportunities to accelerate this access to information and Hyperia Limited is proud not only in taking up this challenge but also at providing feasible solutions to it. With our range of products and services readily available at your disposal, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
In conclusion, world technology has transformed our lives, allowing us to access information at any time from an ever growing number of devices. Tasks once performed by many have been reduced to a single click or tap. However, as the world population exceeds 7 billion people, we must ensure that all are armed with the skills to leverage the vast powers of information technology to improve their lives.