The U.S. Remains Behind When It Comes To Using Technology

(bridge2growth.com)

An annual study which was issued on Tuesday by the World Economic Forum revealed the fact that the United States of America is once again behind other countries when it comes to its use of computing and communications technology.

According to nytimes.com, just like in the previous year, the United States of America finished on the fifth place, the first four positions remaining unchanged as well. The first four countries were as it follows: Sweden, Singapore, Finland, and Switzerland. The list contained all 138 countries which represent 98.8 percent of the world’s total gross domestic product. The rankings which were released on Tuesday, and which reflect the year 2010, were based on various indicators, 71 more precisely. They are both economic and social and they are represented by such things as mobile phone subscriptions, availability of venture capital, and new patents. These reports started ten years ago, in 2001, right after the internet started to become extremely successful. The World Economic Forum, which is based in Davos, Switzerland, believes that the technological progress of a country is very important as it reveals clues about the efficiency, the innovation and the productivity of the country.

Soumitra Dutta, a professor of Information Systems at the Insead business school, who was the co-author of the study, said that the study is intended to reveal what the levels of success of a country are. They were able to see the way in which the countries evolved over the course of time from a technological and economical point of view. They observed that the Asian countries were very successful from this point of view, as it was obvious that their governments were involved in the development of technology there. As I already mentioned, Singapore was on the second spot. However there were other Asian countries which occupied great spots as well. Taiwan was took the 6^th place, South Korea 10^th, Hong Kong 12^th, and Japan 19^th. China took the 36^th position whereas India occupied the 48^th place. Brazil occupied the 56^th place, whereas Russia took the 77^th spot. Indonesia was the country which made the most impressive progress as it managed to climb up 14 positions. In this year’s report it was located on the 53^rd place.

The reason why it managed to progress in such an impressive manner, is because the government has made important changes in the country from a technological point of view. The countries from the West were positioned as follows. Canada was 8th, Norway 9th, Germany 13th, Britain 15th and France 20^th. Burundi was located on 137, and Chad on 138, those being the two last positions. The report classified the countries according to the income groups. The groups were: high income, upper-middle income, lower-middle income, and low income. The leaders of these groups were as it follows: Sweden which belongs to the high income group took the 1^st place. Malaysia which belongs to the upper-middle income group took the 28^th position. Tunisia was the leader of the lower-middle income countries, as it occupied the 35^th place. The leader of the countries from the low income group was Gambia, which occupied the 76^th position.

The United States of America ranked pretty low in various categories. For example in the rate of mobile phone subscriptions, it took the 76^th position. In low-cost access to business phone lines it took the 48^th position. In math and science education, the country occupied the 25^th place.11