Digital technologies have been playing a central role in this global individual empowerment. Since the mid 1990s, the Internet has been giving rise to a truly global digital economy, one connecting people and companies all over the world. In the last five years, our continuing technology advances are bringing the empowerment benefits of the digital revolution to just about everyone in the planet.
Three such advances particularly stand out. The explosive growth of increasingly powerful, inexpensive and smart mobile devices; the rise of cloud computing, which is enabling the economical distribution of sophisticated services and apps to all those devices; and ubiquitous, broadband wireless networks linking it all together. Together, these advances are giving rise to an Internet-based platform for digital, inclusive innovations which is lifting people out of extreme poverty as well as significantly expanding the world’s middle class.