Information and Communication Technology: Trends and Challenges for Regional Policy

Article
Id:
1999

Few, if anybody at all will dispute that the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) developments have wide-reaching impacts on most parts of society. However, it is much harder, if possible at all to predict what type changes we are going to see. In fact, the technological de-velopments offer the potential for a number of different patterns of changes in society, both at a local, regional and national level.

We have chosen to present two main scenarios: i) The regionally grounded ICT future, where there are many proactive regions finding their way into the ‘information society’, and ii) the cen-tralised ICT future, where there are passive or reactive regions and local communities that are adapting to outside/externally defined structures and driving forces. These two scenarios will be comprised of alternative trends, whose difference can be found along a number of dimensions. The span between these ‘cultivated’ pictures will contain a wide range of possible scenarios.