Innovation rate of change measurement part 1: Information Technology (IT)

Abstract

It is possible to characterize the different stages of history according the type of technology available. The last fifty years of human history have been referred to as “The Information Age" because of the great advancements and innovations of technology in electronics, computers and communications. The first part of this work presents a method based on the generation and exploitation of a database for the measurement of information technology gradients. The lack of the innovative data in earlier historic times is compensated by the consideration of the transport technologies as IT. The obtained result is a clear exponential growth curve. If the IT is driver of the global change, the notorious changes in the resulting graph can be related to the appearance of the Kondrattief cycles or "K" waves. Modelski [48] pointed out that the evolution of economic processes is closely related to the rate of growth in technological learning. According to the obtained results, the expected rate of change for IT innovation during the first two decades of the XXI Century will surely surpass the rate of change of technological learning. This will probably generate a non-sustainable system unless a change in the human consciousness occurs. Apparently, the sustainable evolution of the world system will depend on the appropriate technological selections, provoking the adjustment of innovation gradients to the rates of technological learning within the next generational cycles.