Abu Dhabi

Source: mufakiru Alemarat

Dr.. Ali Mohamed Al Khouri

The rapid and astonishing digital developments, and the global appetite for more benefit from technological innovations – as mechanisms for development and competitiveness – are prompting institutions and governments to adopt digital transformation on a large scale and inclusiveness. It is the strategy that has become a priority for the stage of development and rapid progress in a world tomorrow that can only be understood or developed in the language of data and numbers.

In light of the unparalleled speed of geopolitical and economic transformations that the world is witnessing, modern technologies have become distinguishing factors that cannot be overlooked in terms of the possibilities they provide in connection speed, as well as the high and standard quality and accuracy of the output. The Internet and the virtual world have created unprecedented economic and operational models that bring together individuals, companies, and machines to work in frameworks that influence and change the geographical, political, civil, economic and social components.

The term “digital economy” has become the most frequently used term in the global social and economic ecology, and it can be seen in the reality of commercial and government digital platforms and global institutions and their architecture. The emergence and spread of the “Covid-19” virus has contributed to the further rooting of this type of economy and interest in it. With the aim of finding operational alternatives to business models that adapt to the new epidemiological situation restricting movement.

Today, we see that the “digital economy” is no longer satisfied with what it promised to provide more smart services in vital sectors such as work, education, health, trade, and others. Rather, it led to revolutionary changes in concepts and practices amid the expansion of networked thought, and the spread of information collected from the movement of digital transactions and their enormity, which the more points of contact within this network increased; It expands at an accelerated rate (Exponential Growth).

The term “digital economy” pushes economic-technological concepts based on the employment of the Internet to support the “widespread” and rapid spread of digital networks and platforms as accelerators of development processes, providing services, providing job opportunities, accessing new markets, encouraging investments, and attracting capital. We note that the growth of large digital platforms, which are expanding and gathering millions of subscribers, beneficiaries and service providers, not only contributes to the growth of economic transactions, but also makes them more efficient and less expensive, but also increases competition between service providers and manufacturers. This is in the public interest in the end, and serves a number of economic, social and development goals at the same time.

In terms of numbers, according to reports, international studies and experts’ expectations, 65 percent of global GDP will be digitally managed before the end of 2022. The statistics in these reports show the heavy demand of institutions to take advantage of digital networks, especially with the connection of more than five billion A population of the world with their devices connected to the Internet in their daily lives and their “addiction”, and this number is increasing day by day as the millennial generation enters the fray of working life; Where these factors overlap with each other to form “economic value” with its new and revolutionary concept in the digital world, which is expected to continue to surprise us with innovations and scientific and technical innovations in this transforming field.

The reality shows that the “digital economy” is pushing radical concepts and variables in the traditional “economic value” content, starting from the character and abstract value of material goods and services, to the extent of the ability to access, collect and analyze “data and information” about human societies, through interactions These communities are on digital networks; This enables new economic components to be driven as a result of innovation and digital growth.

No longer does “economic value” in digital societies depend solely on intellectual assets in the world of classical economics; Rather, it relies on virtual foundations such as decentralized digital currencies, virtual arenas such as Metaverse that simulates the human world, and revolutionary technologies such as (NFT) and blockchain to record and authenticate digital assets.

The “digital economy” depends on systems that are driven and organized by “knowledge,” accelerators that work on the spread of information, and automated capabilities to measure and implement the impact of the digital environment. As we know for sure; The component of “knowledge management” and its formation is still an immature field in the Arab region; Rather, it is the main reason for the slow progress of Arab countries in their economic and social indicators for decades.

What requires the attention of policy makers is that the concept of “digital economy” can contribute to building new capacities in Arab countries that help them make developmental leaps that may not be available without them, in light of the intensification of competition and global conflicts. The technology hub can no longer be overlooked; Simply because it threatens the stability of the foundations of social and economic security at the national and regional levels, and weakens governance systems and the role of the state.

The starting point, as I have always indicated, must be based on joint regional cooperation in the region. To rebuild the Arab countries, especially in the areas of enhancing human knowledge building, developing basic infrastructure and services, and accessing capital – enabling the launching of development projects, embodying innovations and transforming them into a productive reality – and thus creating more job opportunities; But that requires synchronizing the will with a deep understanding rooted in the content of the ecology of evolution, and not a formal dealing with global transformations that have become like thundering hurricanes that no human being or society, big or small, can stand in their face, no matter how powerful it is.