Borderless World: Vision 2100

We are now 7 billion people on earth and counting ......

Do you know which is the third largest country in the world with over half a billion people only next to China (1.4 B people) and India (1.3 B people)? Tricky question …… ah ha ….. It is Facebook, a social networking portal having more than 800 million users. Mark Zuckerberg can easily be elected as the President of ‘Facebook Country’ having 800 million citizens …… Mr. Obama are you listening !!

Picture credit: Tom Cruise Movie Minority Report

Internet is fast changing our world for last 20 years. There are around 2.5 billion active users on Internet (30% of world population), with top 20 countries making to 75% of the  of the total usage.  In most of the developed world Internet penetration is reaching 50% (USA, Japan, Germany) whereas in developing world including countries like India (5%) and China (30%) the Internet penetration is low. Internet penetration is practically on fringe in most of the African nations and other least developed countries (LDCs).

There is quite significant technical research is going on the of future of Internet. Associations like ISOC, IEFT are continuously working on the reformed, acceptable & stable internet infrastructure which can sustain for thousands of years. There are few writers who have predicted the social structure of Internet in the future. It would be imperative to see the evolution of this social structure Internet over next 100 years and its impact on our world politically & socially.  The question is how Internet will change our world in next 100 years? I will try to predict the ‘optimistic’ scenario:

• Countries will fight over supremacy of cyber world before coming to a common consensus in next 50 years.  

• The world will become closer and compact with information sharing & collaborations. A new community Internet Global Community (IGC) will emerge which would be independent of geographies. 

• IGC will have members who are considered to be citizen of the world and they have their own new common charter. The community would be educated, urbane and influential.  

• Internet becomes the United Nations administered domain. Administration will be done by empowered group of stakeholders including representative of civil society members, governments, businesses and academic. Citizen of the community are govern by universal laws applicable to all geographies, drafted by the UN. 

• Paper currency will be abolished; replaced by common world e-currency.  Most of the trade will be done through electronic medium. Trade & economy will be free among geographies. There may be free movement for citizens across geographies, however, right to live in certain geography may be determined by national governments. 

• National governments will be responsible for the law & order in their own countries.  They have to follow common minimum program (CMP) as chartered by the United Nations empowered group.

• The Global President of IGC will preside over a parliament which is elected every 5 years. IGC citizens through Internet do the elections. IGC parliament will be supreme body having democratic control over internet, electronic trade. IGC parliament will be responsible for framing regulations, laws for the cyber world. 

Many world leaders in the past have tried to unite the world through religion, wars, fear & love. Some of them have succeeded (like colonial British) and some of them failed (like Hitler).  We don’t find many evidences where such a common force like Internet has bought the people together in such a short duration of few decades.

I think human society & world is about to see a substantial change. We may not have to wait for thousands years to see these changes; I think, we will be able to witness the newly transformed, united, networked world in our lifetime (afterall life expectancy is increasing :) ).

Till that time, let us vote for free & fair Internet for everyone in the world.  

 Comments welcome.

Nikhil Agarwal

nikhil.agarwal at cgpworldwide.com

ps: In my next blog, I will propose structure of World IGC Parliament in 2100.