I generally like people who are passionate. But in such a crowd, the
question comes up, "How can you spend all your time on telecom when our
world is facing [...fill in a serious world problem...]?" Well, I don't
have a way to solve world hunger, at least not directly. But I can
contribute to improved communications and, in the long term, that is
really, really significant.
Communications is the prime enabler of human progress. It was our
ability to speak that originally separated humans from other primates.
And whether it's written language, the printing press, telegraphy or
television, each subsequent advance in communications has helped humans
develop -- economically, politically and culturally. Communications
exposes us to new ideas, in real time today -- think TV or mobile
phones -- and across generations -- think books, paintings, photographs
and now the Web. Communications supports collaboration, both
person-to-person and in groups, and two minds are better than one.
Today, two global communications revolutions are in progress --
mobile phones and the Internet. They are converging, but it could be
more than a decade before telephony becomes just another application
running over the mobile Internet. For now, both revolutions are vital.
In the past 6-8 years, the cost of mobile phone infrastructure has
dropped to the point where mobile phone adoption is sweeping many
developing nations. Phone service provides immediate social and
economic benefits to the individuals who get the service, and to their
friends and neighbors.
Meanwhile the Internet has revolutionized the developed world and is making inroads in developing nations.
If anything, we are vastly underestimating the benefits this
combined communications revolution will produce for mankind in the
coming decades.
So, I may not be directly working on a solution for world hunger or
human disease, or for world peace, but to the extent I'm making a small
contribution to the global communications revolution, I'm helping
enable long term solutions to all these problems.