The Forth Industrial Revolution and Digitization

 

There are four main industrial revolution the first one happened as a result of the discovery of steam engine, the second was the mass production, then the technology era, and finally the current revolution is the digitalization. Said by the first guest speaker, Reef Al-Awwad the forth revolution changed this generation world in many aspects. For instance, how this era witnessed the fall of big companies and the rise of new ones for example, how Uber new concept of transportation disrupted the taxi industry. Reef Al-Awwad is a business strategy manager at Accenture which is a major global consulting company with more than 500,000 employees working in over 200 cities. Reef worked on digital strategies for governments across the region, to see how these governments can implement technology in the government sector. With the aim to gain economic outcome, as well as using technology and innovation to provide better services for their citizen.

How the digital trends are changing the life we know

The way people use technology has evolved, business started to differentiate their services from the competition by better utilizing the data. The digitalization concept in the transaction processes in certain sectors raised the expectation the citizens have toward the government’s services. However, the industrial revolution 4.0 made the human lifestyle easier and faster where is everything connected to technology. For instance, how the Internet of things (IoT) took over the world “(IoT) is to make pervasive presence of things around us communicate with each other to achieve common goals. The major features of IoT are the integration of various identification and tracking technologies, such as wired and wireless sensors and actuator networks, enhanced communication protocols, and distributed intelligence for smart objects” (Atzori et al., 2010). Smart houses are one example of how Artificial Intelligence is related to the Internet of Things (AI) is a technology that has been used to simulate the thinking and behaving process (such as studying, reasoning, thinking and planning) of human beings (Pfeifer and Scheier, 2001). Hence, the effectiveness of the Internet of Things deeply relies on the Artificial Intelligence.

 

Trends in the Saudi governments system

However, Al-Awwad explained how this digital era is shifting the governance system specifically in the Saudi Arabia government. With the implementation of 2030 vision “the concept of electronic government (e-government) has emerged over recent years, with this being one of the sectors that is attempting to provide services via the internet. E-government utilizes information and communication technology (ICT) to deliver government services via the internet” (Majid Al-Ruithe, Elhadj Benkhelifa, 2018). Absher system is one example of how Saudi Arabia government is taking advantage of this digital era, the system delivers e-services related to passports, traffic, and civil affair.

The economic impact of the current industrial revolution

The second guest speaker Jack Molony is a consultant at payment services company, one of the Irish business men. Jack discussed the economic impact of the forth industrial revolution and how the past three revolutions led to this 4.0 industrial revolution. Moreover, how the digitization concept changed the transaction process especially in the payment methods from monetary and Payable to the cryptocurrency (bitcoins) or the virtual currency. However, depending on the economist’s insight of the market design Bitcoins have the potential to disrupt existing payment systems (Rainer Böhme, Nicolas Christin, Benjamin Edelman and Tyler Moore, 2015).

The following chart illustrates the growing market of the cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) from 2013 to 2018

(Bitcoin Market Cap, 2018)

Jack discussed the impact of the forth industrial revolution on the economy in terms of how the spectacular technological development is threatening the future of the human jobs. Everything is automated no need for human intervention Particularly with the new inventions of robots.

 

 

Opinions

 

As indicated the e-government is remarkable trend in providing better services and experiences to the citizens but it can get very challenging for countries to adopted it due to size of their computational data. Consequently, in order to improve e-government efficiency and user satisfaction, government organizations need to find ways to deliver their services to citizens as economically as possible without compromising the achievement of desired outcomes. Hence, cloud computing can be a suitable model in the implementation of e-government architectures (Majed Al-Ruithe, Elhadj Benkhelifa, 2018). In addition to the economical impact of this trend Jack Molony considered the (AI) as a threat on the future of human’s jobs. However, researchers have four different points of view 1- The Optimists: who saw the raise in (AI) presence as a better life index, where human are able to enjoy easy fast long life with no complex jobs stress. 2-The Pessimists:Perspective of the (AI) that it is a major threat on the human survival, they believe that the machines will have the higher power. 3- The pragmatists way of thinking is that (AI) is beneficial for the humanity under specific regulations. 4- The doubters: never believed of the future of (AI) hence, they do not consider it as a threat on humanity. (Professor Spyros Makridakis,2017)

 

 

Insights

The driver of the forth industrial revolution is the digital technology, making the whole world digitally connected this technology is showing in four aspects: artificial intelligence and machine learning, the Internet of Things, big data and cloud computing, and digital platform. (Schwab, 2016). Countries who adopt the latest trends for their citizens will provide better experiences and services for them hence, will increase the economic growth for their countries.

 

Conclusion

 This era is the age of digitization, where individuals, organizations, and governments are all changing toward digital technology in a dynamic economy. This revolution excluded anyone who did not follow these trends.

 

 

References:

 

Atzori L, Iera A, Morabito G, 2010. The internet of things: a survey. Computer networks, 54(15): 2787–2805. doi: 10.1016/j. comnet.2010.05.010

Pfeifer R, Scheier C, 2001. Understanding Intelligence. Cam-in the era of Industrial 4.0 and the Industrial Internet.Journal of Stimulation, 10(4): 310–320. doi: 10.1057/s41273- 016-0037-6

10. Al-Ruithe, E. Benkhelifa, Determining the enabling factors for implementing cloud data governance in the Saudi public sector by structural equation modelling, Future Generation Computer Systems(2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2017.12.057.

The Ministry of Interior, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Absher systemAccessed at: 7/11/2018 Online https://www.moi.gov.sa/wps/portal/Home/Home/!ut/p/z1/04_iUlDgAgP9CCATyEEmKOboR-UllmWmJ5Zk5ucl5uhH6EdGmcVbBro7e3iYGHm7GzqaGTh6mhv5G3iaGrp7Gul76UfhVxCcmqdfkB2oCABPX762/

Rainer Böhme, Nicolas Christin, Benjamin Edelman and Tyler Moore, 2015. Bitcoin: Economics, Technology, and Governance Journal of Economic Perspective,—Vol. 29, Nu.2, P.213-23.

Bitcoin (BTC) price, charts, market cap, and other Metrix. Coinmarketcap.com. Accessed at: 7/11/2018 Online https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#charts

 

Professor Spyros Makridakis, 2017. the forthcoming Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution: Its impact on society and firms. Director Institute For the Future Vol, 90. P,46-53.

Le Guoping, Hou Yun, Wu Aizhi, 2017. Fourth Industrial Revolution: technological drivers, impacts and coping methods. Chinese Geographical Science, 27(4):626-637. Doi: 10.1007/s11769-01700890-x