Mauritius Aims To Become A Technology Island
from the best-laid-plans... dept
Whenever I read stories about small countries that suddenly decide they’re going to become technology powerhouses, I worry. Usually, these countries take a lot of government time and effort to try to force fit their population into a new world… and, in doing so, they often discover two things: (1) they don’t do a very good job competing with other companies from larger countries that compete in the same business and (2) when the country does get to the point it aimed for, it discovers that the rest of the world has already moved on by, or has moved in a different direction entirely. So, I wonder about the plans of the Indian Ocena island of Mauritius, which is trying to become a high tech island, rather than one focused on sugar cane and textiles. Not that I don’t think it’s a good idea to modernize, and teach people about computers – but I worry if the country puts too much effort into becoming a technology haven and it fails, will they lose out on other areas that the country already was doing well in.
