Digital Divide Institute

The Five Domains of Innovation

Our model focuses on establishing a “meaningful broadband ecosystems” in each participating nation. To achieve that aim, five domains of “action research” must occur at the same time, each one reinforcing the others. The five domains of innovation are 1) regulation/public policy, 2) technology, 3) management, 4) finance, and 5) ethics. To conduct this research, Digital Divide Institute links clusters of researchers from the nation’s leading universities. From time to time, they are jointed with recognized international Thought Leaders from around the world. The process proceeds in stages, resulting in Meaningful Broadband Reports and it involves a series of virtual conferences hosted by Cisco Systems, which tie these researchers to their counterparts in other nations. In this page, we describe each of the Five Domains, and their research agendas.
 
Regulation/Public Policy: Researchers skilled in public policy and telecommunications regulation must consider the normal instruments of governments – regulation (such as frequency allocation policies), taxation, direct government subsidies, and use of the national budget, e.g. for e-government expenditures) could all combine to attract investments, fund R&D, and develop new markets that produce Meaningful Broadband Ecosystems. Here are the questions that researchers in this domain must answer.
 
Technology: Each nation must activate technological research capacities of its government agencies, universities and private sector to focus specifically on the establishment of meaningful broadband ecosystem that optimally benefits the nation. The research agenda must consider both supply and demand. It must anticipate the introduction of next-generation technologies to develop innovations that are usable, affordable and empowering. For the research questions in this domain, go here.
 
Management: Researchers must also look at the management questions that arise as the nation anticipates the effects of broadband. Using methods of “scenario construction,” management experts must consider how each the three key sectors — business, government and academia – could be restructured once a critical-mass of broadband penetrates the nation. To find the key research questions, go here.
 
Finance: The three matters to be considered by our economics research are: 1) How will it costs for the nation to get Meaningful Broadband; and 2) How could private and public sectors be induced to share costs and risks? 3) How new public-private partnerships are needed? To see how these broad topics are being translated into researchable questions, go here.
 
Ethics: The most important research domain to establish the Meaningful Broadband model concerns ethics: How can a broadband ecosystem produce ethical impacts desired by the nation? To answer this question, researchers are developing a Meaningful Technologies Index, which measures ranks technologies by their degree of meaningfulness. For the questions in this domain, go here.