Reclaiming the digital revolution for the public good

This article is written by Amber Webb, PhD, Managing Director of the SDG Academy at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).

• The problem: Public sector approaches to the digital revolution are reactionary rather than mission-driven, missing the opportunity to lead innovation for our collective good.
• Why it matters: We are entering a period of accelerated technological progress – the current industrial revolution has come more rapidly than any other – but when innovation is left solely to the private sector, the full potential to achieve equitable and inclusive development goes unrealised.
• The solution: The public sector must reclaim the Digital Revolution by defining the direction of new innovations and participating in their development.

In 2016, as the term ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ started to gain traction in mainstream dialogues on economic development, Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairperson of the World Economic Forum, famously stated, “There has never been a time of greater promise or greater peril.” The statement underscored the immense promise of digital technology, but also its potential for wide-scale misuse and harm. Since then, public attention has centred on reining in the excesses of digital giants, like Meta and Amazon, with little focus on reimagining digital spaces for the public good.

Current progress is driven nearly exclusively by the private sector, with public policy slow to keep pace.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, or 4IR, has come to define our current era, but arguably, the moniker does not capture the full impact of our ongoing transformation. Unlike previous economic shifts, this revolution is not confined to industry. Rather, it affects multiple aspects of how we live, interact, engage in commerce and build societies. 4IR is inextricably tied to digital innovations, such as ChatGPT, which transforms our pace of collecting and forming knowledge, or the Internet of Things (IoT) which allows us to control the network of devices enabling much of our daily lives. Yet, a similarity to previous revolutions remains: current progress is driven nearly exclusively by the private sector, with public policy slow to keep pace.

Entering the fourth dimension

4IR is perhaps more appropriately referred to as the ‘Digital Revolution’, a term that has become synonymous with 3IR despite transcending the last two waves of industrialisation. These innovations have ushered in an era of profound progress, most recently exemplified by the ability to carry the world through an unprecedented global pandemic.

By the end of 2020, over 93% of U.S. children reported being able to continue schooling from home, while telemedicine offered care to millions of people during a time when medical infrastructure had never been more strained. Yet, despite the promise of digital technology, it is often its failures that have overwhelmed mainstream media and dialogues on the new digital world order.

In many ways, our current period harkens back to the Gilded Age of unfettered capitalism, when government action became necessary to preserve rights and ensure that prosperity was widely shared.

Congressional hearings with Mark Zuckerberg or sanctions on Twitter accounts, such as that of former US President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the 6 January insurrection, have consumed public attention. Indeed, privacy concerns and misinformation campaigns are a threat to democracy and human rights, and these topics unquestionably warrant public attention and the formation of safeguarding policies. In many ways, our current period harkens back to the Gilded Age of unfettered capitalism, when government action became necessary to preserve rights and ensure that prosperity was widely shared. Yet, have we learned lessons from our 19th and 20th-century predecessors? Specifically, are we capable of more than a reactionary approach that simply puts guard rails on the impacts of private innovations?

Taking stock and making changes

As the Digital Revolution marches on, it is time for the public sector to take the lead in defining the impact of new technologies, as well as participate in their development. The current transformation underway can be guided by a public commitment to reclaim how innovations drive forward societies.

Renowned economist, Mariana Mazzucato, advanced a similar idea in her work on ‘mission-oriented innovation’. This philosophy conveys a need for public institutions to identify “grand challenges” and marshal the expertise and resources of both public and private actors to advance progress. Citing the Moonshot, Mazzucato emphasises the value of spillover effects and secondary technologies that arise when industry and government come together for a common purpose – not only did we make it to the Moon, but the advances in computing, communications and electronics laid the foundation for an IT revolution that has enhanced progress across a vast number of industries.

It is time governments take a leading role in technological advances to ensure impacts that are positive, equitable and enriching to societies.

The foundation of a movement to reclaim the Digital Revolution begins with promoting digital public goods and infrastructure, which refer to resources that are open source, open data, or open content, including software, models, or standards. These goods are non-excludable and non-rivalrous, meaning their use cannot be restricted to any particular population, or that consumption and use by one does not limit or take away that from another. They are the building blocks of digital public infrastructure, which are the platforms that deliver goods and services for the advancement of society.

Real-world impact

One of the most notable digital public infrastructure projects in recent years is the ‘India Stack’, now the world’s largest API. The stack is a unified software platform comprising three layers of resources, enabling all of India’s citizens a digital ID and government registration, access to bank accounts and the ability to participate in digital financial transactions through its biometric ID programme, Aadhar. Aadhar has helped to level the playing field for the country’s poorest, becoming a vehicle of empowerment for marginalised citizens and enabling the growth of small and medium enterprises, while also providing critical access to social welfare schemes.

At the level of international cooperation, the UN has formalised agreements to advance digital public goods and infrastructure via the establishment of the Digital Public Goods Alliance. Just this May, the UN proposed a Global Digital Compact to advance an open, free and secure, digital future for all. Agencies like UNESCO also host commitments, such as the Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER), whose implementation will include the dissemination of free digital academic material. The joint committee for the OER Recommendation, chaired by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), aims to accumulate and share the best available expertise on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

As we approach the midpoint of the UN’s 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, one thing we can be certain of is that the world already has much of the expertise needed to achieve our global goals – but expertise must be made openly available via digital public infrastructure and using FAIR principles – guidelines to improve findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse of digital assets. Governments and civil society can do more than rein in private sector innovations – they can drive forward technologies and policies that advance societies in equitable and inclusive ways. From our past industrial revolutions to the current digital one, let us learn the lesson that innovation and economic growth are not solely the purview of the private sector, but best led by those advancing the public good.

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