Which nation is the world's most tech savvy?

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Thu, 11/04/2004 - 00:14.

Good information posted in today's Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter - the most interesting reference is: "Typically, we have seen that the civil liberties and education levels of a
nation strongly determine its level of technology adoption..." - let's make the nation of REALNEO as good as Denmark, with great IT, education, and civil liberites for all!

<>Odin, Thor, Ragnarok spotted war-driving in Denmark:
Which nation is the
world's most tech savvy? If you said the United States, guess again. According
to IDC's
Information Society Index
, which measures a nation's ability "to participate
in the information revolution," it's
Denmark
. Based on 2003 data, 67 percent of Denmark's population uses the
Internet with 84 percent of those users connecting from home. 22 percent of the
country's households use broadband connections and total mobile subscriber
penetration reached 59 percent. Sweden came in second overall, followed by the
United States, Switzerland and Canada. Predictably, Indonesia, Vietnam, India
and Turkey received the lowest overall scores of the 53 countries assessed.
"Typically, we have seen that the civil liberties and education levels of a
nation strongly determine its level of technology adoption, but there seems to
be a loophole where wireless adoption is concerned," said David Emberley, a
senior analyst for IDC. "This is one area in which consumer adoption has been
strong even in some of those countries with lower overall scores for social
freedoms."

( categories: )

Their metrics are very useful for NEO

If you are interested in developing the new economy in NEO, it is worthwhile to review the full IDC report, which details the metrics used to create their rankings - while our region would score poorly today, this offers benchmarks to consider to make us world-class over the years, as is our need and objective. I'd add to the lists wifi hotspots, IT workers as % workforce, eGovernment effectiveness, etc...

IDC Highlights: Building the advanced information society

Internet

  • Internet users
  • Home internet users
  • Mobile internet users
  • eCommerce spending

Telecom

  • Broadband households
  • Wireless subscribers
  • Handset Shipments

Computer

  • PCs per household
  • IT spending/GDP
  • IT services/GDP
  • Software Spending

Social:

  • Secondary education enrollment
  • Tertiary education enrollment
  • Civil liberties
  • Government corruption

See PDF of report here

Tech

I would have though that Japan would be the most tech saavy. They make so many gadgets and many big electronics companies are based there. If you google for tech savvy countires, there are some surpising ones that come up.