Ideas worth discussing
Most technology policy is written by people who assume the hard parts are technical. They rarely are. The hard parts are institutional: who is accountable when an automated system errs, who pays when infrastructure fails, and who decides what data is collected in the first place.
Rules lag, then leap
The pattern repeats across markets. Regulation arrives late, is written broadly, and then is applied inconsistently until something goes visibly wrong. Firms are then asked to absorb the cost of a framework designed in a hurry. A predictable framework, even a demanding one, is cheaper than an unpredictable one.
Skills policy should be boring
The most effective training programmes in the region are unglamorous: structured apprenticeships in specific job families, employer-linked certification, and curricula revised often enough to stay current. Programmes announced at scale and never evaluated produce certificates rather than capability.
The digital economy is not only about technology. It is about how technology changes opportunity.
What we plan to argue
- Independence of institutions is an economic asset, not a legal abstraction.
- Open standards and open source are infrastructure policy in practice.
- The productivity gains will follow basic reliability, not novelty.
Our aim in this section is not to predict the future. It is to make the current arguments clearer, with the trade-offs stated rather than implied.
