On Tuesday, I tweeted about the World Economic Forum’s latest reports, which placed Canada in 8th place (out of 138) for “Networked Readiness“. Sweden, Singapore and Finland took home the medals this year.
The full Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011 (GITR) can be downloaded [pdf, 10.1MB], which includes one page summaries for each country.
While the interactive version of the report helps find Canada’s status quickly, it is important that Canadians look at how the index is composed. Part 4 of the report begins on page 300. It provides details about the 9 broad components of the Networked Readiness Index.
- Environment
- Market environment
- Political and regulatory environment
- Infrastructure environment
- Readiness
- Individual readiness
- Business readiness
- Government readiness
- Usage
- Individual usage
- Business usage
- Government usage
Each of these 9 “pillars” are examined with 3 to 11 sub-categories, for a total of 71 measures being evaluated. These categories are all important indicators of the readiness of a nation to compete in a global digital economy.
Because of the election, there are a number of groups that are taking a superficial view of what should be contained in Canada’s national digital strategy. The 71 indices in the GITR provide a guide to the breadth of issues that need to be understood and addressed in a comprehensive digital economic strategy. These are the kinds of performance metrics by which Canada’s digital economy can be and will be measured.
When the dust settles from the election, will the Industry Minister release a digital strategy that leads Canada from an acceptable 8th place ranking to improve to a place on the podium?