The 21^st Century will be a different Century from 19^th and 20^th centuries

(SPEAKING NOTES FOR THE GRADUATION CEREMONY OF DCDM ON 30 MAY 2005)

May I congratulate you for your successful completion of your studies. You are among the very few 11% of all your friends who joined primary schools 16 years ago to reach this level. Mauritius needs more of its youth to join this knowledge intensive group

1. Being given an opportunity to address you on such a day, a day most of you will remember throughout your life, may be special and perilous. It is special because if one strikes well, the results would be positive. It is perilous because if my remarks were to touch you on the wrong side, the impact would not be constructive. Fortunately, however nothing is either black or white, good or bad. The World is made of ‘nuances’ and meandering through the nuances will probably be the biggest challenge in front of you.

2. My submission to you, this afternoon, is that the 21st century will be very different from the two past centuries and therefore warrants a radical review of our thinking. The very bio-chemistry of our thinking will be confronted with convulsions which will challenge the foundations and the pillars of the 19th and 20th centuries.

3. The three areas I would like to touch are the world economic scene, the information flows and lastly technology. In January 1995, the WTO was launched following the Marrakesh agreement signed in April 1994, in October 1995 the Federal Networking Council unanimously passed a resolution defining the term internet, and in July 1995 the Bose Einstein Condensate matter, a new matter was produced in a laboratory in Colorado, USA. Each of these three events in 1995 have triggered fundamental changes which will make the 21st century different from the 19th and 20th centuries. I propose to comment briefly on each of them. Let me start with the International Economic Scene.

4. When the WTO was launched in January 1995, after the difficult Uruguay Round discussions between 1986 and 1993 and as a build up of the GATT Rounds, the divide of the world was essentially between the developed world (the G8) and the developing nations. 10 years after the launching of the WTO, the international scene is different; the world, today is divided between the G8, G20 and G90.

5. One can also argue that the world economy is being driven by the forces of globalisation, which, today, has become irreversible because of global interdependence. The Asian crisis which started in Thailand spread to Korea, Malaysia, then to Russia then to Brazil and touched American markets. Both Greenspan, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of the United States and Rubin, the treasury secretary of Bill Clinton had to intervene.

6. Over and above economic interdependence, globalisation has provided a new economic tide in terms of economic integration of two of the most populous nations, namely India and China, into the Modern World. Globalisation has already had spectacular effects in the social and economic landscapes of these two countries. In the economic sphere, a more level playing field is emerging between developed and developing countries.

7. The level playing field in economic strength will also be accelerated by the changing demographic profile of the world – the developed world’s share of global population will shrink from 24% in 1950 to 10% in 2050. There is little doubt that the emerging Asian economic powers with huge demographic shifts will alter significantly the international scene and change the architecture of the power relationships of the last two centuries.

8. Let me now touch the question of information flows. Though Tim Berners Lee, with MIT, launched the World Wide Web in 1994, it was in October 1995 that the Federal Networking Council unanimously passed a resolution defining the term internet. In July 1995, Microsoft had released Windows 1995 Operating System which included built-in key technologies for connecting to the internet. The advent of the internet marked a fundamental change in the field of information flows. In the 19 and 20th centuries those who control the flow of information determine what content enters into billions of mind. Even, now, at the dawn of the 21st century, one may say it is still the case.

9. In the internet universe, however, the content is driven not just by the producers but also by the consumers. Information on the Internet cannot be controlled. Though English language will remain very important, the proportion of English Website will fall steadily and be replaced by a huge variety of languages. Chinese is already the second language in the world of internet. The internet is unique in generating a two-way flow compared to other modes of information exchange. Again this two-way flow will have a profound impact on the world. Internet will therefore accelerate a more “balanced” globalization and not the one-way globalization of the 19th and 20th centuries.

10. Let me now try to explain the last point regarding quantum change in technology. It is probably the next profound change that will revolutionise our life.

11. In the world of technology, one of the best known rules is Moore’s law. Moore, one of the cofounder of Intel stated in 1965 that Computer chips will double in speed and power every 18 months. Over last four decades Moore’s law has been a driving force in Technology. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s some scepticisms had emerged regarding the sustainability of Moore’s law in spite of some scientists pushing the idea of quantum computing.

12. In July 1995, under a joint programme by the University of Colorado and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (USA) two scientists, Cornell and Wienman succeeded in creating an entirely new state of matter predicted in the 1920’s and the 1940’s by Bose ad Einstein respectively. This matter is known as the Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC) matter. One of the most commonly known properties of the BEC’s is superfluidity. This matter flows without interior friction. 10 years after that breakthrough, IBM is carrying out tests on the possibility of using the Bose Einstein Condensate matter to produce quantum information processor which could reduce the time which the best super computer to-day would take to factorise a 400-digit number from 10 billion years to 30 seconds. This is not in the domain of the impossible to-day. So Moore’s law could be revisited on a Copernican scale.

13. We have every reason to believe that the 21st Century would indeed, be one which will be different, on a massive scale, from, the last two centuries on the economic, information and technology fronts - in terms of moving away from a one-way direction to a two-way direction world with many thriving cultures and ideas. We would become a truly cosmopolitan society. Mauritius our cosmopolitan island is already a microcosm of this emerging world.

14. A decade after 1995, after the WTO, the Internet and the creation of the Bose Einstein Condensate matter, China and India are spearheading a new world economic architecture, internet is exploding and the world is getting closer to the Quantum Computer. Is it not magic? You have this world for you. Go and take it.