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Growing in Rural Alberta Symposium
Palliser Economic Partnership is once again hosting this event which features speakers on rural development and provides an opportunity for participants to share ideas on developing rural economies, understand new workplace realities, foster rural leadership, engage youth and build community capacity that makes rural communities attractive.
See this page for a more detailed for more details.
In today's session we were asked to put some thought into what some of the most significant "driving factors" affecting our communities and putting pressure on Albertans.
We came up with 20 "driving factors" affecting our our citizens. The ideas included everything from the need for adequate stewardship of our water and natural resources to good social policy and regulation.
The next step of the exercise is to have everyone rate each of these driving factors in terms of their overall impact and importance of each factor on our society. Then we rate each of the "driving factors" in terms of the level of uncertainty of each of these issues.
This exercise immediately got me to thinking that a reflection on 5 of the last major technological revolutions of the last 200 years might be useful:
For example, right now many are concerned about the future availability of energy and the impact of fosil fuel consumption on our climate. Still others are concerned about transportation and the impact of energy costs on our lives.
The recent problems in our economy have very much been impacted by each of these technological revolutions. Any particular technology hasn't by itself solved all of society's long term challenges. Each successive revolution feeds into the next and the evolutionary path of each revolution is riddled with collapes and societal upheaval including many revolutions marking the significant turning points.
The ultimate success in how well any technological revolution provides society with sustained positive affects depends in part on how well we manage those challenges.
The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry can surely play a substantial roll in helping to provide many solutions to our communities problems. The directions we take with these new technologies can have a profound impact on our economies both globally and locally.
We believe the Medicine Hat Fiber To The Home project can help provide our community some of the critical infrastructure that can help our community take full advantage of the Information and Knowledge revolution to contribute to a prosperous future for our community.
In today's session we were asked to put some thought into what some of the most significant "driving factors" affecting our communities and putting pressure on Albertans.
We came up with 20 "driving factors" affecting our our citizens. The ideas included everything from the need for adequate stewardship of our water and natural resources to good social policy and regulation.
The next step of the exercise is to have everyone rate each of these driving factors in terms of their overall impact and importance of each factor on our society. Then we rate each of the "driving factors" in terms of the level of uncertainty of each of these issues.
This exercise immediately got me to thinking that a reflection on 5 of the last major technological revolutions of the last 200 years might be useful:
- Mechanization and production exemplified by the Industrial Revolution of Britain. 1770-1800.
- The Age of Steam and the development of robust and efficient transportation networks with railways effecting national economies and international economies effected more by Ocean Steam Liners. 1830-1850
- Steel Electricity and Heavy Engineering. 1875-1900
- The Age of Oil, Automobiles and Mass Production. 1900-1930
- The Age of Information and Telecommunications. 1970-2000
For example, right now many are concerned about the future availability of energy and the impact of fosil fuel consumption on our climate. Still others are concerned about transportation and the impact of energy costs on our lives.
The recent problems in our economy have very much been impacted by each of these technological revolutions. Any particular technology hasn't by itself solved all of society's long term challenges. Each successive revolution feeds into the next and the evolutionary path of each revolution is riddled with collapes and societal upheaval including many revolutions marking the significant turning points.
The ultimate success in how well any technological revolution provides society with sustained positive affects depends in part on how well we manage those challenges.
The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry can surely play a substantial roll in helping to provide many solutions to our communities problems. The directions we take with these new technologies can have a profound impact on our economies both globally and locally.
We believe the Medicine Hat Fiber To The Home project can help provide our community some of the critical infrastructure that can help our community take full advantage of the Information and Knowledge revolution to contribute to a prosperous future for our community.
Municipal Supernets are coming