Technology has been the engine of humanity's progress for millennia. From the early mastery of fire, the development of the wheel right through to today's manipulations on an atomic scale, we have used our creative ingenuity to develop countless new game-changing technologies.
The latter part of the 20th and early 21st century have been periods of truly exponential growth and discovery. Driven by the invention of computing our rate of progress is now so fast that according to the scientist Ray Kurzweil, at some point in the middle of this century, total computing power, the ability to rapidly process information and make meaning of it will far exceed that of all the humans on the planet. And it will only keep getting faster and more capable still.
Two key events have driven this progress: Gordon Moore's "law" predicting the rate of exponential growth in transistor capability, and perhaps the most fundamental invention of our time, courtesy of Sir Tim Berners Lee, the world wide web.
Moore's Law laid down a path by which scientists have regularly and reliably miniaturised the capabilities of the silicon chip, almost treating the law as though it has been a target rather than a prediction.
Berners Lee's "http" creation at CERN, opened the door on what has clearly become a race to connect everything to everything else.
Connection between ideas and objects
Connection between ideas and objects, thoughts and creations are relentlessly being made every second of every minute of every day. We are now accelerating towards a time where humankind's knowledge will be joined together by an invisible web of connections, searchable and retrievable in a just a few fractions of a second.
So as we begin the second decade of this century a fundamental paradigm shift is underway in the citizen relationship. The invention of "cool" new technologies, including handheld devices (miniature "windows to the web"), now allows citizens to develop new relationships and create new demands from public service deliverers.
This opportunity should not be missed and the need to think differently about service design and cost reduction should be grasped.
But it's not just about developing a new "App" that looks great on a handheld smartphone. To gain true lasting value and to reduce costs of service delivery these creations need to be integrated into the DNA (the way of working) and the central nervous system (the underpinning IT) of the public organisation. This is not difficult, but it takes a fresh perspective on how IT is "done" to enable it rapid adoption.
Cloud computing and on-demand services clearly have an important part to play in this new future but they should be built upon solid foundations.
Technologies today allow for the disaggregation of software components upon platforms but these platforms need to be open and allow for processes to be shared across boundaries. This approach can significantly reduce cost and speed the delivery of outcomes, but to gain the advantage inherent in this new technological paradigm, public services must finally use common shared processes.
With budget's rapidly tightening now is the time to creatively innovate. Computing technologies will continue to be the enabler of better quality outcomes for tomorrow's citizens, but the moment must be seized and not delayed.
Simon Godfrey is director of business development and government relations at SAP
