Knowledge,
technology, and competitiveness
Randolf Kissling
CEO Aura Interactiva
 Moore's
Law
Number
of granted patents
Technological
assimilation capacity
Traditional
methods are no longer useful
Technological
transformation and its impact on everyday life
Technology
and Learning
A
Quantum Leap in Education
Trends
Survival
and knowledge
Visionary
Organizations
A variable that increases exponentially is a variable
where growth is proportional to its magnitude.
In other words, the higher the value of the variable,
the faster its growth.
To understand technological advances in the XX
century and at the beginning of the XXI century,
we use some variables that grow exponentially.
Among these variables, we see three major trends
that are drastically transforming the playing
field: an increased number of transistors in an
integrated circuit at the same price, the ability
of the human race to generate knowledge and the
ability of society to adopt new technologies.
1.
Moore's Law
In the area of technology, one of the best-known
examples of a variable that grows exponentially
is Moore's Law, which indicates that the number
of transistors in an integrated circuit (a good
indicator of the processing power of a computer)
doubles every 18 months at the same price.
The implications of Moore's Law go beyond a laboratory.
This means that during the 50s we were able to
buy for about $1,000 (constant) the processing
power equivalent to 1 operation per second; 25
years later, in 1975, we were able to buy for
the same price, the processing power of about
1 million operations per second, and in 2000,
for the same price, the processing power a billion
operations per second.
Graph 1: Moore's Law
 If this trend
continues (and there is no evidence that it will
stop in the foreseeable future), in 2025 the forecast
is that we will be able to buy, for $1,000, a
machine with a processing power equivalent to
the human brain, and in 2050, for the same price,
the processing power will be equivalent to 6,000
million human brains, equivalent to the present
total population of the Earth. return to top of page
2.
Number of granted patents
The number of patents granted annually, such as
the usufruct on processes, devices, ideas, or
creations that are new and clever and can somehow
be commercially used, is usually seen as a good
indicator of the amount of useful knowledge being
generated by mankind. Towards the end of the XIX
century, the United Status granted 10.000 to 15.000
patents a year; in 1990 around 100,000 patents
were granted annually, and nowadays, around 200,000
patents a year are granted.
The above is evidence of the capacity of the human
race to generate knowledge that also has an exponential
growth.
If we live in a world where the computing power
and the capacity to generate knowledge are exponentially
growing, we should ask ourselves if society is
able to adopt this knowledge fast enough, in other
words, are you and I learning enough and at a
pace that will prevent us from becoming ignorant
in less than a decade? We should also ask ourselves
if society is taking advantage of technological
changes fast enough (if we are taking advantage
of the computer advance potential fast enough). return to top of page
Graph 2: Granted Patents
 3.
Technological assimilation capacity
Society has shown an impressive capacity to adopt
new technologies at a pace that is growing exponentially.
If in 1930, it took 25 years for 25% of the North
American population to have a television set,
the time to achieve the same penetration level
for the personal computer or PC was about 15 years
in the 70s and less than 6 years for the same
penetration level in the case of the Internet
in the 90s. return to top of page
Graph 3: e-Learning Benefits
 Traditional
methods are no longer useful
So far, it seems that the transformation capacity
of a human being at an accelerated pace to keep
up with the changing world, in the case of the
computer power and knowledge generation, has been
relatively good. However, it is also evident this
will not be possible at least based on traditional
learning methods.
Exponential growth will make a $1000-computer
to have the processing power of a human brain
from 2025, and during the XXI century, the human
race will be able to generate 1.000 times more
knowledge than during the XX century.
Therefore, we are entering an age in which we
have to change the way we do things simply to
prevent us from becoming obsolete. return to top of page
Technological
transformation and its impact on everyday life
Some sort of Internet access is available to everybody.
A computer whose price is less than $1,000 is
very common, and it seems that there will soon
be computers for $100.
A short time ago, communicating with a friend
living in another continent implied a phone call
or a letter that took days to arrive. Today, we
can make free phone calls on the Internet, and
an email takes milliseconds to travel around the
planet.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), that
a short time ago depended on intermediaries, can
today participate in truly global markets by selling
directly to buyers and attaining better terms
and conditions. The traditional travel agency
is being replaced by online reservations and electronic
tickets.
The borders between countries are becoming blurred.
Technology has allowed for an accountant in India
to do taxes for a client in Europe; for a security
expert based in any country to check a bank's
information system network in New York, and for
the software developer based in Costa Rica to
work for a firm in California. This transformation
is the result of a technological explosion and
the knowledge economy. return to top of page
Technology
and Learning
It is evident that technology has had an impact
on the way we do business, communications, and
trade. However, it is not clear what technology
has done for education. We have not seen fast
changes in other areas. There are not descriptive
education variables whose curves are exponentially
growing.
One of the major technological innovations in
education took place about 120 years ago when
the first blackboard was invented; the teacher
had a relatively effective mechanism to transmit
information to several students at the same time
and graphically.
Several decades after came the slide projector,
then the multimedia projector, and more recently,
Powerpoint. It should be pointed out that the
speed to introduce the latest innovations of educational
mechanisms has been increasingly fast. return to top of page
A
Quantum Leap in Education
Recently, for the first time since the introduction
of the blackboard 120 years ago, a major educational
innovation was introduced: what we refer today
as e-Learning or computer-assisted learning.
e-Learning uses a computer to give instructions
in the most personalized, fun, interactive, and
challenging fashion possible thanks largely to
the convergence of three major trends that were
mentioned at the beginning of the article: the
large computer power, the capacity of people to
assimilate new technologies and use them in their
daily life activities and finally, the vast amount
of things to learn on a daily basis in order to
survive during the knowledge age.
e-Learning has the best of two worlds: the best
of presential learning led by experts with the
highest levels of knowledge and a high capacity
to teach, and the best of information systems,
multimedia, Internet, and telecommunications.
Technology-assisted instruction has two major
benefit cornerstones: the first is related to
resource efficiency (we already know that resources
are becoming scarce) because training costs per
student are drastically decreasing, mass scalability
(the ability to train thousands and thousands
of students), centralized technology-assisted
management, and finally, flexible training schedules
and locations.
The other cornerstone has to do with students
and their ability to learn: with e-Learning the
student will have a direct contact, with no intermediaries,
with the knowledge generated by the best experts
based on the best approaches and with the most
consistent message. The flexibility will allow
training processes to be just in time where they
are most needed, and when due to reasons beyond
student control, the processes will indicate what
topics to train.
Students will have a rich, interactive, funny,
and challenging experience which increases satisfaction
levels. During the training, they learn while
interacting with other people, playing, exploring,
and building their relevant contextual knowledge.
All these technological and methodological virtues
are combined to create a more effective learning
experience, with higher knowledge retention and
a higher application of knowledge on each student's
daily tasks. return to top of page
Trends
In the 80s, Internet nodes (interconnected computers
or routers in a network) increased from 20.000
to 80.000, and not everybody (besides university
researchers) was aware of this growth. But in
the 90s, Internet nodes increased from 20 million
to 80 million, and this transformed the world
completely and forever. A few people were able
to foresee the Internet explosion and be ready
for it.
Graph 4: Trends
 At this moment,
we see clear signs of an explosion of knowledge
and learning technologies. For the first time
in three years, technology-assisted instruction
exceeded traditional instruction at a corporate
level based on the reports by the American Society
for Training and Development.
Another study, also at a corporate level, indicates
that learning budget allocated exclusively to
e-Learning accounts for a third of the total training
budget.
Formal education processes (schools, high schools,
universities) are generally lagging behind in
the use of technology as compared to the corporate
world, probably because companies are under a
higher pressure to train faster and with relevant
and contextual contents and just in time and at
a lower cost. But the trends are irreversible.
We cannot forget about these trends and that e-Learning
could experience the same explosion the Internet
nodes experienced in the 80s. We have clear indicators
about these trends. return to top of page
Survival
and knowledge
Almost every global large corporation use e-Learning
to train personnel. All the corporations have
recognized that knowledge and the ability to apply
it on daily life activities represent a source
of competitiveness and survival. For medium-sized
organizations, this is not very evident, and it
is even less evident in small organizations.
This is a serious issue because we are in the
knowledge age; a person who has good knowledge
at the right time will have a better chance to
be successful. But if small organizations do not
use the power of knowledge to compete with big
companies, we are speaking of a "tied sheep against
a loose wolf" situation in terms of competitiveness
and survival. return to top of page
Visionary
Organizations
In the face of the fierce competition in the increasingly
global and demanding markets and with the understanding
of the role of knowledge in the new productive
processes, the Board of Directors and Managers
from the Center for Cooperative Training and Studies
(CENECOOP) started an aggressive plan two years
ago to create and transform knowledge based on
e-Learning.
The EDUCOOP project is the outcome of this initiative,
which in its first stage includes knowledge, methodology
and technology to provide over 400.000 cooperative
members in Costa Rica and 4 million cooperative
members in the region with knowledge to become
more competitive.
This program is special because it is mostly targeted
to small organizations located in remote areas
where knowledge is not readily available. These
organizations which some months ago did not have
access to any knowledge have now the best way
to train themselves and be competitive.
It is interesting to point out that the variables
we used to describe the impact CENECOOP has had
with its e-Learning programs (that are just beginning)
have an exponential behavior. It seems that the
most important technological advance for education
since the invention of the blackboard 120 years
ago is going to transform cooperative company
competitiveness.
Aura Interactiva is the leader in the development
of customized e-Learning solutions. It has trained
over a million students using technology. It has
a presence in 12 countries in the region and its
Research and Development Center is based in Costa
Rica. Aura Interactiva offers the most complete
solution of organizational e-Learning. consulting,
development, implementation, outsourcing, among
others. For further information, visit: www.aurainteractiva.com
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