We’re updating our research at the Tau Institute, something that I launched earlier this year in Asia and the US with sponsorship from Cloud Computing Journal and Computerworld Philippines. We’re aided by an advisory board with members from the US, Europe, Latin America, and Asia.
I started this research late in 2010 with the mission of developing a relative index of national ICT competitiveness that measures things on a “pound-for-pound” scale. Its aim was to go beyond traditional measures that, in the end, simply list rich countries on the top, poor countries on the bottom.
Our method accounts heavily for per-person income levels and local cost-of-living; we’re seeking those countries that do the most with what they currently have. Today, we are integrating several publicly available measures into a series of indices, covering 85 nations. Among the measures integrated into the research are per capita income adjusted for local cost-of-living, Internet access and speed, income disparity, overall development, and corruption levels.
We incorporate a number of exponential and logarithmic iterations that smooth these different measures into curves that reveal which countries are leading the world, which are lagging, and which have the greatest potential.
Global Leaders
We’ve found that the countries who’ve done the best job in developing their ICT infrastructures given their available resources include South Korea, Estonia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Vietnam, the UK, Lithuania, Germany, Taiwan, Canada, and Poland. The USA finishes slightly above the middle of the pack.
Countries that we see having the most potential for continuing rapid development (irrespective of their current development level) include Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Nigeria, Bulgaria, Romania, Morocco, Mongolia, Senegal, Serbia, Egypt, Lithuania, China, the Philippines, and Hungary.
We don’t account for population, so a very small superstar like Estonia (with only 1.5 million people) will not be as attractive in many cases as the USA and other developed powers or lagging giants such as India and Indonesia. We also realize there are well-apparent challenges in each member of the latter group.
Our research is intended simply to start conversations rather than finish tem. In a chaotic world we think we’ve isolated the true superstars, while also developing a list of places we’d recommend for the intrepid, whether you seek markets, sources, subsidiaries, or investments.
We’ve created a “PerfectLand” as a benchmark, which has optimal statistics in all categories. No countries exceed PerfectLand in overall excellence, while, as expected, PerfectLand runs in the middle of the pack when it comes to continuing potential.
Beyond the Basics
In addition to the overall indices, we’ll create rankings by income level, region, and special categories such as “BRICS+” and “ASEAN+”. We also plan to develop detailed country and regional reports for sponsors who require them.
Another big initiative will be to add several dimensions of social media to the research, something that should benefit avidly social countries such as the Philippines, India, and others.
We’ll have full results in time for Cloud Expo November 5-8 in Santa Clara. Meanwhile, contact me through Twitter if you’d like to know more.